Precious

A BOOKLIST TOP TEN DEBUT OF THE YEAR

It happens on a hot summer evening, while children with peeling sunburns roam the streets playing tag and cicadas hum in the trees. Sissy’s ex-best friend goes missing while riding her bike in the park, and it casts a shadow on her family, who are already struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy. For nine-year-old Sissy, whose mother is not there when she’s needed, whose father is angry, and whose older sister is focused on seducing her high school teacher, desperate secrets seem to underlie everything. As the summer grows hotter and the missing girl is never found, the sense of foreboding builds toward one violent night when everything will change forever for Sissy’s family.

Sandra Novack’s fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, and Mississippi Review, among other publications. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times, and holds an MFA from Vermont College. Novack currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, Phil, and many animals.


From the Hardcover edition.