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Nan Thayer Ross:
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$30

From the first edition, published by Chrysalis Books (1979):

Nan Thayer Ross’s novel is a concentrated, compact, bare-bones narrative of three events in the life of a young Midwestern woman. The style has the eerie crackle of a candid tape recording on which splices have been artfully placed so that events and descriptions recycle, appear over and over; conversations replay, reorganize, change slightly in meaning each time they reappear. It is a loop of time and space, limiting, contained, and, for the reader, emotionally relentless.

It is through Sarah as narrator that the novel is built. She is the quiet center of all events, although her thoughts, emotions, and reactions are never directly stated. There is no “I,” no “we.” It is from the reactions and dialogue of the others in the book that one learns what is happening to Sarah. This technique creates a hole in the center of the book that draws the reader deeper and deeper into the painful cycle of loss and death that Sarah faces and tries to avoid at once.

It is a book that will be read by women and men who read seriously. It is not light fiction or “summer reading.” Should it go on the Feminist Shelf? The author says, “I’m not sure what a feminist book is, but I am a feminist and I wrote this book.”

Afterword by Rhiannon Vogl

13.5 × 21 cm
136 Pages, Cloth Bound w/ Jacket
ISBN: 978-1-953441-12-06
First Edition (2026)

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