Danielle Sosin reads from "The Long-Shining Waters"
05/10/2012 7:00 pm
The Long-Shining Waters
tells three stories whose characters are separated by centuries and
circumstance, yet connected across time by the place they inhabit. In
1622, Grey Rabbit—an Ojibwe woman, a mother and wife—struggles to
understand a dream-life that has taken on fearful dimensions. As she and
her family experience the abundance and hardship of living near the
“big water,” her psyche and her world edge toward irreversible change.
Berit and Gunnar, a Norwegian couple, fish the great lake in 1902.
Berit, who is unable to conceive, finds the lake anchors her isolated
life, yet those same waters ultimately test the limits of her endurance
and spirit. And in 2000, Nora, a seasoned bar owner, abruptly loses her
livelyhood. Left facing an open-ended future, she’s drawn into a
reluctant road trip around the lake.
These
narratives unfold with the mesmerizing rhythm of waves, as a fourth
mysterious character comes into relief. Haunting, rich in historical
detail, and universal in its exploration of the human desire for meaning
when faced with uncertainty, The Long-Shining Waters
is an unforgettable and singular debut, by an author whose work
effortlessly “captures unexpected moments of beauty and clarity” (New York Times Book Review).
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Danielle Sosin is the author of the novel The Long-Shining Waters (Milkweed Editions, 2011) and Garden Primitives a collection of stories (Coffee House Press, 2000). Her fiction has been featured in the Alaska Quarterly Review,
and has been recorded for National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts: A
Celebration of the Short Story, and Iowa Public Radio’s Live From
Prairie Lights. Born in 1959, she lives in Duluth, Minnesota.
