One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

For two quietly unhappy years, linguist Claire Gallagher has been living deep in the New Hampshire woods, enduring a polite but strained marriage to a highly respected scientist. Once a determined overachiever and academic star in her own right, she now spends her days avoiding her stalled dissertation and creating EZ crossword puzzles. But for all Claire's knowledge of words and their meanings, the meaning in her own life eludes her. One bleak morning in winter, she announces that she's leaving.

By nightfall, at the urging of her younger sister Noelle, Claire finds herself heading to the last place she thought she would ever go: Ireland -- the birthplace of her abrasive, chronically ill mother and the country Noelle, a college dropout, now calls home. In a small town on the Irish coast, Claire's struggle to move ahead with her life takes her deep into the puzzles of her past -- in a world in which there are no simple answers, and the only questions that matter are those of the heart.

Author: Elise Juska
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 06/05/2007
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.56lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.49w x 0.78d
ISBN: 9781416516927

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2007 pg. 413
Romantic Times 06/01/2007 pg. 54 - Excellent

About the Author
Juska, Elise: - Elise Juska's short stories have appeared in many magazines, including The Hudson Review, Harvard Review, Salmagundi, Black Warrior Review, Calyx, and The Seattle Review. She teaches fiction writing at The New School in New York City and The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her first novel, Getting Over Jack Wagner, is available from Downtown Press.
Visit the author's website: www.elisejuska.com.