This is Not My Sky: A Novel - Softcover

THIS IS NOT MY SKY tells the story of three generations of Lithuanian women living in New York City during the Cold War years. Each woman carries the burden of Lithuania's tumultuous history in her own way. The matriarch of the family, the Grandmother, is a village charmer who lost her power to heal when she crossed the Atlantic Ocean from war-torn Europe to America after World War II. Her powers scattered across the vast ocean, she tenaciously holds onto the old beliefs and ways while trying to keep her family together. Maria, her son's common law wife, a run-away mail order bride, struggles just to hold onto reality as she raises her children in a strange new foreign land where nothing is familiar. Maria is tormented by the memory of her family's involvement in the postwar armed resistance against the Soviet occupation of her country. Meanwhile, her husband, a concentration camp survivor, curses the resistance for destroying his family. Maria's two American-born daughters struggle with their own cultural legacy while living out their American lives at a time of great cultural and societal change. The power of memory and sacrifice, echoes down the generations, following the family across the Atlantic to America, leaving no one in peace.

Laima Vince earned her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Columbia University. She is the recipient of two Fulbrights and a National Endowment for the Arts grant in Literature. Other titles include: THE INTERPETER, JOURNEY INTO THE BACKWATERS OF THE HEART, THE SNAKE IN THE VODKA BOTTLE, LENIN'S HEAD ON A PLATTER, IRISH WOMAN WASHING, LOVE CULT AT THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, and THE GHOST IN HANNAH'S PARLOR. Laima Vince teaches Creative Writing and English.