The Book Of Fred

Raised in an isolated fundamentalist sect, fifteen-year-old Mary Fred Anderson has never watched TV, been to a supermarket, or read anything beyond the inscrutable dogma of the prophet Fred. But when her brothers, Fred and Freddie, die of curable illnesses, their parents are jailed and Mary Fred goes into foster care in a Washington, D.C., suburb. As she struggles to understand everything from sordid daytime television to aromatherapy, Mary Fred begins to positively influence her troubled housemates. Soon Alice Cullison, a divorcée who can't shake her loneliness; her adolescent daughter, Heather, armored in sarcasm; and the secretive Uncle Roy, who is perennially jobless, are keeping house and taking meals together. But when violence shakes this fragile new family, Mary Fred must confront the past in order to determine her own future.