Naomi Gayle

The two novellas that comprise Mindscapes explore the ways in which a flower child of the 1960s copes with love and loss and family secrets in the 1980s. In Who By Beast, Carola and her imaginary friends ponder the meaning of life, death, shopping, and the possibility of a secret inheritance. Thrust into the midst of relatives she never knew very well, Carola wonders what she really inherited from her stylish mother and her absent father. In Lot's Wife, Helen looks back and discovers that the possibility of love and commitment is hers if she dares to turn around and look forward instead.

When his faith was tested by the death of his son, David Levine gave up the rabbinate for a job in graphic design. Now his faith is being tested again, and he finds himself returning once more to the religion of his childhood in ways he had never imagined. On this journey, he explores his family's roots in Eastern Europe and discovers that he shares more than he thought with the father he barely remembers.