American Still Life

Trapped in a web of her own creation, Skade Felsdottir, a gifted but deeply troubled photojournalist, returns to a place she swore never to go back to: the town where she grew up-- a town that forever hosts her darkest traumas and secrets-- to try and finish a book project. She reconnects, against her better judgment, with an old boyfriend, and meets a deeply traumatized and broken young woman, Kitten ＂ Kit＂ Dyer: toweringly tall, awkward, achingly lonely, and savant-gifted as a puppet creator and puppeteer. As Skade and Kit work feverishly to get Skade’s book finished before her deadline, the two of them begin a parallel journey toward healing together, until a shocking revelation and a critical failure of judgment put Skade on a tipping point between life and oblivion. We are all drowning, and we are all rescuers.

With roots in the American deep South and Midwest grounding his sense of place, Jim Naremore has published an array of short fiction and the award-winning The Arts of Legerdemain as Taught by Ghosts (Belle Lutte, 2016). He holds an MFA from the Solstice program at Lasell University in Boston and currently lives with his partner and cat in New York’s Hudson River Valley.