First published 2012
Meredith "M.R." Neukirchen sits in her office as the first woman to lead an Ivy League university. Her career consumes her life. She maintains a relationship with a secret lover whose intentions remain unclear. The country moves toward war with Iraq, and critics challenge her leadership in unexpected ways. M.R. faces a crisis that tests everything she has built. A spontaneous journey to her upstate New York hometown forces her into a psychological confrontation with Mudgirl, the abandoned child she once was. Her mother left Mudgirl in the muddy flats beside the Black Snake River. A couple rescued and adopted her, burying her traumatic origins behind middle-class respectability. Now the fierce intelligence that lifted M.R. from her small-town past threatens to destroy her. The barriers between her public success and private history collapse as she discovers the cost of breaking barriers.
Genres: drama, american-fiction, contemporary, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Black Snake River, Iraq, New York
Period: 21st-century
428 pages · Hardcover · Ecco
Content warnings: mental-illness