Kirjahaku

As children, Hayden and her sisters ran carefree through the wilds of rural Connecticut when their father was away writing novels. But when he eventually returned, the spontaneous nature of their female household gave way to his oppressive regulation. Years later, Hayden has moved south to Hoboken, New Jersey, where she works as a hair stylist in a salon filled with the easy laughter and unfettered joy that colored the best days of her childhood. But into this paradisiacal community arrives a stranger, much like Hayden, who is also haunted by a dark secret and a troubled past. Together these two misfits will form a tentative bond that will help them overcome personal crises and pain, as they struggle to discover who they truly are and to find the strength to move on.

To those who meet Jana Thomas, hers seems a perfect life, with a beautiful home, a successful career as an ER doctor, a loving husband, and a darling six-year-old son named Evan. But inside, Jana is crumbling. Evan's seemingly normal all-boy tendencies are escalating her motherly worry into something close to hysteria, threatening her job, her marriage, and even her relationship with her son. The real source of Jana's disintegration is a past she has kept buried for sixteen years. When that past begins to bleed into the present, Jana is forced to plunge into the emotional whirlpool she left behind-with results that are shattering, profound, and wrenchingly moving. Reminiscent of Sue Miller and Jane Hamilton, Cai Emmons's extraordinary first novel strikes a fine balance between keen psychological observation and page-turning momentum.

By award-winning author Cai Emmons, an ambitious and transcendent novel set against the backdrop of California's wildfire season in which a family in crisis is thrust on a collision course with the world around them that has an outcome beyond their wildest imaginings. When Lu and George Barnes drop their only daughter, Pippa, off at college, they return to their Sonoma, California, home to face a marriage eroded beyond recognition. Without the camouflage of her beloved daughter, Lu finds herself unsure of who she is as a wife and a woman, increasingly disinterested in her husband's pretentious values. George, on the other hand, struggles to understand his wife's aimlessness, as she retreats further and further into her own world. Meanwhile Pippa, who has spent the past year shunning the intimacy she and her mother once shared in a desperate attempt to prove her independence, feels completely adrift in the bustle of L.A., even fearful, given the recent disappearances of women with no worldly explanation, which have been confounding the country. She finds comfort only in her beloved cat and new interest in her zoology class--and its professor. While Lu and Pippa turn to the natural world in this moment of personal crisis, George clings more tightly than ever to the material life he's built. But tensions outside the family are mounting as well--California's wildfire season is swiftly approaching, and with it, a surprising reckoning that none of the Barneses can avoid.

Sinking Islands continues the story of Bronwyn Artair, a scientist who possesses the power to influence the natural forces of the Earth. After several successful interventions, including one in Siberia, she has gone into hiding, worried about unintended consequences of her actions, as well as about the ethics of operating solo. But circumstances call her to action again, and an idea takes shape: What if she could impart her skill to other people? Gathering a few kindred souls from climate-troubled places around the world—Felipe from São Paulo, where drought conditions are creating strains on day-to-day life; Analu and his daughter Penina from a sinking island in the South Pacific; and Patty from the tornado-ridden plains of Kansas—she takes them to the wilds of Northern New Hampshire where she tries to teach them her skill. The novel, realistic but for the single fantastical element, explores how we might become more attuned to the Earth and act more collaboratively to solve the enormity of our climate problem.

30-year-old Bronwyn Artair, feeling out of place in her doctoral program in Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, drops out and takes a job as a TV meteorologist, much to the dismay of her mentor, Diane Fenwick. After a year of living alone in Southern New Hampshire, enduring the indignities of her job, dumped by her boyfriend, she discovers her deep connection to the natural world has given her an ability to affect natural forces. When she finally accepts she really possesses this startling capability, she must then negotiate a new relationship to the world. Who will she tell? Who will believe her? Most importantly, how will she put this new skill of hers to use? As she seeks answers to these questions, she travels to Kansas to see the tornado maverick she worships; falls in love with Matt, the tabloid journalist who has come to investigate her; visits fires raging out of control in Los Angeles; and eventually voyages with Matt and Diane to the methane fields of Siberia. A woman experiencing power for the first time in her life, she must figure out what she can do for the world without hurting it further. The story poses questions about science and intuition, women and power, and what the earth needs from humans.

Sybil White Brown returns from Boston to the small West Coast city where she once lived, hoping to heal after a terrible loss. Summoned to jury duty, she is dismayed to be assigned to the jury of a murder trial alongside her ex-husband with whom she had a rancorous divorce. As the trial progresses, she and her ex tiptoe around each other but eventually become disastrously entangled. Meanwhile, Sybil obsesses about the female defendant, whom she believes is innocent. The situation explodes during jury deliberations when Sybil comes face-to-face with her own unexpressed rage.

AUTHOR OF LIVID • SHORTLISTED FOR THE MISSOURI REVIEW EDITORS PRIZE, THE SARTON AWARD, AND THE NAUTILUS AWARD • Cai Emmons awes readers with the release of THE BELLS“A book Cai finished on the day she died, is a story of life: how to live fully, embrace our messy complications, and swim toward love.”–Miriam Gershow, author of Closer and Survival Tips: StoriesThirty-three-year-old Niall O’Malley has failed a five-year mission to live as a monk and is attempting to redefine himself as a high school teacher in New Jersey.As The Bells opens, thirty-three-year-old Niall O’Malley has failed a five-year mission to live as a monk and is attempting to redefine himself as a high school teacher in New Jersey. The transition has been bumpy. He loves teaching history to inner city teens, but he hits a roadblock when a belligerent student, Colton, possibly a white-supremacist, behaves in ways that threaten Niall. As troubles mount at school, Niall’s girlfriend Lluvia pressures him into making a deeper commitment to their relationship. She wants them to move in together with Lluvia’s pre-teen daughter and elderly mother. Haunted by his failure as a Cistercian monk and his troubles with one man in particular, the abusive Brother Thomas, Niall abandons Lluvia and heads back to his old monastery in Massachusetts for a final showdown with Thomas, now dying of ALS. Redemption for Niall is elusive as he strives to mend his faith.

AUTHOR OF LIVID • SHORTLISTED FOR THE MISSOURI REVIEW EDITORS PRIZE, THE SARTON AWARD, AND THE NAUTILUS AWARD • Cai Emmons awes readers with the release of THE BELLS“A book Cai finished on the day she died, is a story of life: how to live fully, embrace our messy complications, and swim toward love.”–Miriam Gershow, author of Closer and Survival Tips: StoriesThirty-three-year-old Niall O’Malley has failed a five-year mission to live as a monk and is attempting to redefine himself as a high school teacher in New Jersey.As The Bells opens, thirty-three-year-old Niall O’Malley has failed a five-year mission to live as a monk and is attempting to redefine himself as a high school teacher in New Jersey. The transition has been bumpy. He loves teaching history to inner city teens, but he hits a roadblock when a belligerent student, Colton, possibly a white-supremacist, behaves in ways that threaten Niall. As troubles mount at school, Niall’s girlfriend Lluvia pressures him into making a deeper commitment to their relationship. She wants them to move in together with Lluvia’s pre-teen daughter and elderly mother. Haunted by his failure as a Cistercian monk and his troubles with one man in particular, the abusive Brother Thomas, Niall abandons Lluvia and heads back to his old monastery in Massachusetts for a final showdown with Thomas, now dying of ALS. Redemption for Niall is elusive as he strives to mend his faith.

Winner of the Leapfrog Global Fiction PrizeThe characters in these stories operate in a world in which their voices are not heard, and are navigating prickly paths, doing what they can to survive. An attorney, mother of twin babies, is destabilized when her husband is away, and comes to doubt she has a right to her own house; a young artist thinks she knows the score when she moves from LA to New York, only to be forced to look past stereotypes to discover what really matters; a documentary filmmaker, rattled by her recent divorce, visits her oldest childhood friend, who is several years into debilitating dementia, and realizes how quickly shared history can vanish; a woman in her twenties who feels on the outside of everything forms a manipulative friendship with a mother aggrieved by her daughter's recent death; and an office manager approaching middle age is taken aback when she realizes she isn't central in the lives of her young male employees, whom she always thought adored her. These five women's lives speak to the difficulty of honing a strong identity in a culture that consistently devalues women.Sophisticated and bright with promise...these stories elucidate incredibly difficult-to-articulate topics such as jealousy, self-hatred, unlikely connection and friendship.... If a writer's job is to make the unseen visible, the stories in VANISHING are flashlights, illuminating the subtle, enormous tragedies we humans encounter every day.--Marie-Helene Bertino, author of 2 A.M. at the Cat's PajamasPraise for Cai Emmons' novelsGripping. Brings home the power and terror of maternal love. --O Magazine Emmons...has an eye for the grating intimacy of small-town life and a fine ear for suggestive metaphors.... Unusual and memorable. --The EconomistLovely writing... Emmons' emphasis is on her characters, and she draws them well. --Seattle TimesWith family relations as twisted as a French braid and language as vivid as a platinum dye job, Emmons' potent novel features magnetic characters and complex and compelling secrets. mdash;BooklistA gift of a book, an affecting story of violence and forgiveness.--BookpageAccomplished playwright and filmmaker Emmons tests chilly waters in this ambitious, unsettling debut.--Publishers WeeklyGorgeous writing throughout makes for an unusually affecting and memorable debut. --Kirkus ReviewsThe authorCai Emmons is the author of the novels His Mother's Son (which won an Oregon Book Award), The Stylist, and her newest, Weather Woman (fall 2018), about a meteorologist who discovers she has the power to change the weather. Emmons was formerly a playwright and screenwriter; her short fiction has appeared in such publications as TriQuarterly, Narrative, and Arts and Culture, among others. She has taught filmmaking at the University of Southern California and Orange Coast College, and creative writing and screenwriting at the University of Oregon.