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Powerful stories of a woman caught in the long shadow cast by the love of her mother The tightly linked stories of Corrina Wycoff's gripping debut collection follow the life of Elizabeth Dinard. Raised in poverty by a schizophrenic single mother who self-medicates with heroin, Elizabeth experiences a childhood fraught with emotional and financial insecurity, as well as darker exploitations. Now living a fragmented and desperate adulthood, she continually attempts to outrun her brutal past but proves unable to let go of her love for the charismatic, lawless mother who continues to haunt her. In her struggles as she ages, leaves home, moves through lovers, loses her mother to suicide, and eventually becomes a single mother herself, Elizabeth's gritty determination to simply survive--to exist--is an enormous, if bittersweet, victory.