Kirsty Gunn

As their family decays under the influence of alcohol, twelve-year-old Janey and her brother spend their summers by a lake, where they defend each other against the encroachments of the adult world. A first novel. 20,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo.

In hypnotic and mesmerizing language, Kirsty Gunn explores the dark world of a young girl who has grown up with a mother dependent on storytelling and the oblivion of addiction to cope with the memory of lost love, the girl's father. Raised on deceptive tales of happiness, the younger woman is drawn into and begins to …