First published 2013
A banker's daughter searches for the child she gave up at fifteen, only to discover an unexpected connection that changes everything. Meanwhile, a mother basks in delayed celebrity after her valedictorian son vanishes during an African mission trip, but her newfound fame carries a bitter price. When a biblical flood strikes Falls, North Carolina, two married doctors find their friendship shifting toward dangerous territory as the waters reshape both their neighborhood and their lives. These three novellas capture a changing South where high-speed internet coexists with age-old secrets of adultery, obsession, and family shame. Gurganus writes with bawdy humor about characters who choose to remain in their small town even as the world transforms around them. The stories reveal how erotic desire clashes with marriage vows, how parenthood conflicts with personal dreams, and how love creates both hilarious and heartbreaking complications that echo through generations.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, southern-gothic, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Falls, North Carolina
Period: 21st-century
352 pages · Hardcover · Liveright