Nightingales of Troy

<p>In 1908 Mamie Garrahan faces childbirth aided by her arsenic-eating sister-in-law Kitty a nun who grows opium poppies and a doctor who prescribes Bayer Heroin. "In the twentieth century I believe there are no saints left" Mamie remarks. But her daughters and granddaughter test this notion with far-reaching consequences. Kitty's arsenic reappears sixty years later in the hands of her distraught niece. A schoolgirl's passion for the Beatles and Melville--a passion both lonely and funny--shapes her life. Each decade is illuminated by endearingly eccentric characters: an anorexic waitress falls for a wealthy college boy in the jazz age...an exuberant young nurse questions science during the Depression...a homely seamstress designs a scandalous dress in the 1950s. <em>The Nightingales of Troy</em> the first fiction collection by an acclaimed American poet creates a vividly palpable sense of time and place. Alice Fulton's memorable characters confront the deepest dilemmas with bravery and abiding love.</p>