Lake Effect - by Hillary Behrman (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

2024 Winner of The Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, selected by Lauren Groff

Wild places and hidden urban spaces exert a gravitational pull in Lake Effect, the debut story collection by Hillary Behrman. On the surface of an ancient bone-dry lake, amidst pockets of urban wilderness, on top of unmapped mountain ridges, and in cities ranging from Seattle to Istanbul the characters in these stories are always on the move but rarely headed to where they want to be. Viv's tenuous grip on reality is shattered when she is forced to leave her desert outpost. Paula's real and dream life become indistinguishable. Oliver can't shed the hold of family lore as he negotiates his love affair with Daniel. Siblings, Alex and Marcie, are comforted and scraped raw by intimacy as they traverse the years from juvenile vandalism to a labor and delivery gone terribly wrong. Miles searches for his mother in a homeless encampment beneath a maze of freeways. And in the aftermath of her mother's death, Sam finds herself on a frozen lake miles from shore with a virtual stranger. These stories exist at the intersection of social isolation and fierce intimacies and call into question the limits of our well-intentioned efforts to care for each other.

Review Quotes

"A great short story is a glorious creature, sleek and sinuous, bearing very sharp teeth. A collection of them is redoubtable. [...] Hillary Berhman's Lake Effect is exactly this kind of exhilarating and wild book."

- Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

About the Author

Hillary Behrman's award winning short stories have been described as deeply humane and unsettling and have been published in journals, magazines, short story dispensers and an anthology. Lake Effect is her debut collection of short stories and was winner of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction. Hillary lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest where she has worked as a children's civil rights attorney and a public defender. She hopes this work lends urgency to her stories. She's the parent of two young adults and her life and writing are rooted in a strong sense of family, community service and a connection to wild places. Learn more at hillarybehrman.com.