Banyan: A Short Novel

＂That summer lasted so long. The summer after Father killed himself. Hot, my God. We thought it would never end.＂Gerry and Clara, brother and sister, live in seclusion in a once splendid house on a river in southwest Florida. As a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico builds to hurricane force, Clara grows increasingly distressed over the bewildering emotions that accompany her confused memories of the dreaming time, and over her strange visions of houses she has never been in. Are the memories and visions only dreams, or are they the only reality, dimly remembered and tragically misinterpreted? Like the statue of Lorelei in her overgrown garden, ＂a celestial being held captive by jungle vines, soft as sculpted moonlight, her dreaming face aglow under deep sea green,＂ Clara’s essence is captive to forces too illusive for her to grasp. Yet it is from her complex interplay of memory and illusion that the unspeakable and heartbreaking crime committed in this house finally emerges.

Cynthia is a freelance writer, principally of narrative histories, a novelist, screenplay and award-winning children’s storybook writer living on an island in Florida, just across the big, beautiful river that flows through BANYAN.