Valerie Geary is the author of CROOKED RIVER, a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award. Her short stories have been published in The Rumpus and Day One. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.
Lucy Durant was only 14 years old when she lost her older brother. First to his paranoid delusions as he became increasingly obsessed with UFOs and government conspiracies. Then, permanently, when he walked into the desert outside Bishop, California, and never returned. Now on the 10th anniversary of Nolan's mysterious disappearance, Lucy is still struggling with guilt and confusion --- her memories from that period are blurry and obscured by time, distance and alcohol. But when a series of unsettling events leads Lucy back to Bishop, she is forced to reconcile with her estranged mother and come to terms with the tangled memories of her past to discover what really happened to her brother all those years ago.