In Claire Cox’s debut novel, Silver Beach, three women—a mother and her two daughters—suffer a loss that changes the course of their lives. The two sisters, Mara and Shannon, were separated and raised differently—Mara, with her father in Massachusetts, who profits from a good education, finds a stable job, and has a loving girlfriend; her half sister Shannon is left behind with their alcoholic mother in San Diego, becomes unemployed, and survives on handouts and disability checks. Years later, the sisters are reunited as their troubled mother nears the end of her life. With precise prose and poetic insight, the layered characterizations and complicated relationships among the three women are painfully and beautifully examined in this empathetic and haunting novel.
Silver Beach by Claire Cox. Published by University of Massachusetts Press. Silver Beach is a finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction; the winner will be announced on May 11.