About The Tigers of Lents

The Tigers of Lents is the story of the Garrison family. At the heart of it, the three Garrison sisters: Sara, the eldest, a fiery soccer star on the verge of pulling herself out of the life of poverty she’s always known; Elaine, shy and struggling with the weight she carries both physically and mentally; and Rachel, a reader and poet whose imagination stalls at trying to picture a better life.

Tigers is set mainly in Lents, an outer neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, beginning in 2010. Lents is made up, in part, of evictions, chain-link fences, and gravel roads, and the Garrison family’s journey reveals an often misunderstood American existence. The girls’ hard-edged mother, Melanie, works full-time as a grocery store cashier, and their estranged father, Keith, is about to return to Lents after serving a six-year prison term for burglary and wants desperately to reconnect with his daughters.

Even as the Garrisons struggle to communicate with each other, as they battle self-doubts and at times self-sabotage, they draw on a fierce shared strength that allows them to push back at their reality. Through it all, each Garrison fights to keep their dignity — often with daily acts of grace and good humor — and to prove to themselves and each other that they should not be underestimated.