Lake Song

<div> <p><b>Selected by Deesha Philyaw as winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction</b><br> <br> The linked stories of <i>Lake Song</i> set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New York's Finger Lakes region span decades to plumb the complexities violence and compassion of small-town life as the twentieth century hurtles forward. Against a backdrop of historical events-bootlegging Klan attacks gold smuggling the Albany Ketchup Murders the 1965 Northeast blackout-a generations-long mystery unwinds. In 1906 Mavis Staunch drowns in Okisee Lake days after she refuses to sell her land to a trio of brothers. The same night one of the brothers Angus Epps doesn't come home. Few suspect the two events are connected and no one imagines the role that a ten-year-old boy a canoe and a pack of coyotes play in the tragedies. Spiritualists grifters sugar makers arsonists seekers and saleswomen wind through each other's lives and across decades to add layers of resonance to each captivating story. The mercurial lake that unites the people of Kinder Falls sustains as much as it haunts both witness and diary.</p> </div>