Single Digits - by Io Mahle (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In a house both ordinary and singular, Iris struggles to understand her offspring and protect them from fathers too volatile to tame, mothers too stubborn to change, and a world that seems unwilling to notice. Between shattered windows and broken furniture, she carves out sanctuaries, fixing what others destroy while piecing together the fragments of her own past.

From the high desert of New Mexico to the tilled prairie of Iowa, Iris navigates motherhood, loneliness, humiliation and marginalization, loss, and love with a fierce, tender clarity. She minds children, makes a living, turns houses into homes, sends books to a son behind bars-all the while wrestling with the gritty dynamics shaping her family through the generations, all the while turning her experience and mindset into lyrical, visionary fiction that flexes and expands as the years roll on.

This is not just a story of survival-it is a story of wonder. In quiet ponds and groves, the ordinary blooms into the extraordinary. The moon is a cantaloupe; frogs and cedars hold secrets; children's laughter and whispered stories become threads that weave the past, the present, and the fantastic into a complex tapestry of being.

With a sharp eye for detail, a reverence for the wild and the magical, and an unflinching honesty about what it means to live through fear, grief, and family turmoil, this book is a luminous exploration of resilience, imagination, and the tender chaos of human life.