It's 1980, and country musician Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time. Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover, and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time before she makes the last, most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood.

"Breathtaking. . . . The Farewell Tour is a shimmering paean to the deeply flawed American West, which feels real and vital thanks to Clifford's gift for description." — The New York Times Book Review

"Thought-provoking and entertaining. . . . The Farewell Tour is indeed a redemption tale. But its seemingly predictable arc is disrupted by plenty of smart misdirections and subtexts. Like a particularly sharp country song, it takes clichés and untangles and renews them. . . . Clifford's emotional acuity is matched by her grasp of country history. . . . The strength of The Farewell Tour is in showing just how much work is required to escape that judgment, to erase the persona and see yourself clearly." — Washington Post