During a family trip to Vermont in the summer of 1937, her husband, Oliver, is called away. When Lucy falls into an affair with a younger man, her son, Tony, walks in on them. The betrayal rips apart the family, ultimately estranging Lucy from her son. Twenty years later, the two run into each other at a bar in Paris, and Lucy realizes that she may have found her best chance at absolution.

    Johnson reveals little-known facts about Oates's personal and family history and debunks many of the myths that have arisen about this brilliant, enigmatic woman. Johnson takes readers from Oates's impoverished childhood in upstate New York and the birth of her autistic sister through Oates's studies at Syracuse University, where her talent was immediately recognized, to the full breadth of her astonishingly productive career. His astute examination of Oates's novels, short stories, and plays demonstrates how her art has been informed by her life.

    Twelve letters. One year that changes everything.Lizzie and Bea Harris were always very close. They were sisters and nothing could tear them apart. Until Bea dies at the age of thirty-five, leaving her sister twelve letters and a mission that will change Lizzie’s life forever.Alone for the first time Lizzie is left trying to pull together the pieces of a life she has for so long ignored. With Bea’s list of last requests, Lizzie has a chance to finally find a place for herself in the world - out from under the shadow of her sister.

    Sometimes things don't happen we wish would. In the course of living, problems arise, both big and small. We might wish our past had been different or that we could be different. We struggle through disappointments and frustrations, losses and other painful experiences. Accompany Duke on this life-changing adventure. His guides will be your guides. His answers will be your answers. By the time he is heading home, both Duke and you will know how to take life's inevitable lumps and bumps in stride, and find happiness and serenity anytime.

    The sisters are so close that they have created a private language, yet to the outside world they can't be sisters: Birdie appears to be white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at the Afrocentric school they attend. For Birdie, Cole is the mirror in which she can see her own blackness. Then their parents' marriage falls apart. Their father's new black girlfriend won't even look at Birdie, while their mother gives her life over to the Movement: at night the sisters watch mysterious men arrive with bundles shaped like rifles.One night Birdie watches her father and his girlfriend drive away with Cole—they have gone to Brazil, she will later learn, where her father hopes for a racial equality he will never find in the States. The next morning—in the belief that the Feds are after them—Birdie and her mother leave everything behind: their house and possessions, their friends, and—most disturbing of all—their identity. Passing as the daughter and wife of a deceased Jewish professor, Birdie and her mother finally make their home in New Hampshire.Desperate to find Cole, yet afraid of betraying her mother and herself to some unknown danger, Birdie must learn to navigate the white world—so that when she sets off in search of her sister, she is ready for what she will find. At once a powerful coming-of-age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America, "Caucasia deserves to be read all over" (Glamour).

    Saul, however, is irrevocably drawn to Vine the moment he lays eye on her and believes they are meant to be married, over the objections of her mother and his. Despite her misgivings, Saul’s mother, Esme, and his brother Aaron take to Vine from the moment she comes to God’s Creek. In fact, Vine realizes from the start that Aaron’s interest in her is far more than brotherly. When Saul must leave Vine behind for a year of work, troubling and violent events follow his departure, and Vine’s spirit and her love are put to the ultimate test.This novel was the Winner of the Award for Special Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a Finalist for the Southern Book Critics Circle Prize.Blair brings this novel into a beautiful new paperback edition, along with two other Silas House novels, Clay’s Quilt and The Coal Tattoo. The three novels, which share a common setting and some characters, are companion novels. They may be read individually, in any order, but collectively, they form a rich tableau of life in rural mountain Kentucky in the last century.

    A bonus chapter explains how to build your own backyard rink.