Jennie Shortridge has written an absorbing novel of a family with hard edges but an unbreakable bond.

When tough-talking, 24-year-old Tallie Beck runs out of music gigs, she has little to show for her 17 years on the road as a traveling musician. Her baggage includes a failed marriage, the recent acquisition of an aging automobile held together with kicks and wishes, and a heavy dependence on cigarettes and alcohol.

With the lure of a music job, Tallie returns to Denver, where her married suburban sister, Jane, has been coping with the erratic mood swings of their bipolar mother since Tallie left home when Jane was 13.

Remembering the burden forced on her after Tallie's departure, Jane refrains from welcoming the prodigal sister. But her pre-teen daughter Emma adores the forbidden glamour of her aunt.

Glamour indeed.

Tallie's music gig turns out to be nothing more than that of a support person in a scripted production at a LoDo club. Forced to seek shelter in her mother's LoDo loft, Tallie meets a new and different mother who has become a highly respected artist surrounded by friends, while Tallie finds herself the outsider, slowly and reluctantly forced to learn humility and find new values.

Shortridge wisely refrains from making Tallie's transformation too sudden and unrealistic. The young woman follows numerous detours en route to establishing new personal goals.

There are pitfalls at work here: with alcohol, an empty promise of stardom with her ex-husband, a constant replaying of old wounds with her mother and sister. Yet Tallie displays an honesty and resilience that makes us want to cheer her on, even when she's at her most obnoxious.

When a crisis hits the mother, the family unites and reconfigures, with each person, including young Emma, assuming a new, healthier role.

Shortridge's finely crafted sentences often use a single telling detail to suggest the larger picture. It's a notable debut, marred only by the excessive space given to Tallie's music scene - which limits the audience for the novel and occasionally impedes the story's momentum.

Joan Hinkemeyer is a Denver librarian and freelance writer.