After moving to a coastal town a gay couple is drawn to a group of outsiders living on the edge of the sea. In
Spell Heaven, a linked story collection, a lesbian couple moves to a coast town and unexpectedly finds a sense of belonging with a group of outsiders.
Stories include the tale of an undocumented boy's drowning when a wave pulls him out to sea, an ex-FBI agent's surveillance of a man who leaves chocolate bars at a tree in a weekly ritual, a mother on meth who teaches a lesson on mercy, and Kite Man, who flies kites from a fishing pole and sells drugs on the side. His motto:
When the kites fly, you can buy. The narrator of these stories, raised in a working-class Croatian American fishing family and immigrant community, chooses an early career in labor-oriented jobs. Years later, she finds herself in an academic position in a white-collar world "where the clothes are clean but the politics are dirty." She questions her own stereotypes about her neighbors and gradually begins to question her life path.
A modern story about a band of free spirits--not unlike characters found in Steinbeck's
Cannery Row--and the queer female narrator who yearns to get in with this out crowd,
Spell Heaven is for readers who are looking for a human connection in today's increasingly isolated world.
