Oreads - Softcover

A lyrical coming-of-age novel, Oreads is a bittersweet journey depicted so vividly that readers see the fog on the mountains, smell the ripening corn, and feel the conflicted passions of characters who can't escape, yet can't go home again. A work to savor. --Susan Hubbard, author of The Season of Risks, Blue Money (Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize) and Walking on Ice (AWP Short Fiction Prize)

At fourteen, Cassie Wolphe's way of life in Appalachia is being changed by the influx of modernity/postmodernity. She is in love with Jake McCollum, believes she will marry him and constructs her life around this central act, but like her brother, Ben, Jake rejects a life he believes offers nothing but hard work and poverty. Forced to make a decision between her love of Jake and her love of the mountains, Cassie finds she can't leave, a choice which may define her life forever. At once lyrical, emotionally charged, moving and heartbreaking, Oreads is a literary treat that will keep you compelled right to the very last page and beyond.