Description: Fiction. Short Stories. "Like Jean Stafford, Edna O'Brien and Shena Mackay, Sarah Smith reminds us that the turmoil of family and self is the short story's terrain, a complex space that is most fully seen in the clarity with which a highly focused, personal prose can detail the world. These are wonderfully vivid, well-crafted stories - sometimes raucous, always strangely disconcerting" - Michael Anania.
Review Quotes: "There's a dark current pulsing through Smith's novel-in-stories as unfathomable and murky as the pools and eddies of the Michigan lake that serves as both backdrop and central character in this disturbing study of one life out of control, another on the brink of destruction. Valerie and Clara, mother and daughter, share their love of this abundant landscape and the treasured family homestead that lies at the core of an intense family dispute. Yet for all that attracts the two women, there are complex issues driving them apart. In Valerie, we find a deeply troubled mother and wife: scornful, bitter, angry and frustrated. In Clara, we see both the receiver and rejecter of all the mother's lost dreams and ambitions. When Valerie commits suicide, the act pushes Clara into a fevered quest to establish her own identity while struggling to discover that of the mother she could never know. Through reverence for the land and recognition of its powerful influence, Smith paints a disquieting portrait of lives of quiet desperation."--Carol Haggas "Booklist"