Smithereens

The arrival of Frankie Crane, a girl with a past beyond her years, in the slow, small town of Linwood, Iowa, transforms sixteen-year-old May Caldwell's life, leading to sexual awakening, family ruin, and murder. Tour.

Literature & Fiction

Chehak, Susan Taylor

United States

DOUBLEDAY

Four critically acclaimed novels . . . A master of the Midwestern gothic . . . If you haven't discovered Susan Taylor Chehak: Welcome to Rampage. Once again, Chehak has mined her Midwestern roots and produced a highly charged novel where the questions of the present are inextricably bound up with the secrets of the past. In this novel, Chehak sets her story in a small town called Rampage, and as its name implies, it is a place where much violence converges on those whose lives are bound up in its dark history. Madlen Cramer has come back home with her two young children to be reunited with her childhood friend Rafe, the sexy drifter who has abducted a four-year-old girl from an abusive foster family, leaving the parents for dead. During this hot Iowa summer, the past will refuse to stay past as painful truths begin to emerge: about Rafe's own foster family; about Madlen's marriage, whose bonds had begun to unravel in the months before her husband's tragic accident; and about her beautiful self-absorbed mother, whose passions bring about the devastating entanglement of two families in an embrace that cannot be undone until Rafe has gone on the rampage that will destroy everything in sight and leave readers breathless. A master of the Midwestern gothic, Susan Taylor Chehak is that rare writer who brings the closely observed detail to a level of storytelling that has earned her both an Edgar nomination and the praise of critics nationwide. Rampage is for people who understand, on every level, that you really can't go home again.

Rampage

The arrival of Frankie Crane, a girl with a past beyond her years, in the slow, small town of Linwood, Iowa, transforms sixteen-year-old May Caldwell's life, leading to sexual awakening, family ruin, and murder. Tour.

She's seen her times and her town change forever, and when murder destroys the peace, she knows that nothing can be the way it once was. "Absolutely stunning... Reads with the force and generational sweep of some ancient rural myth." —New York Times Book Review In this old-fashioned tale of murder and retribution we meet a strong-minded woman who has always feared for her family and tried to protect her father and her two sons. Annie D. was raised in Nebraska, all flat farmland and cornfields, except its rivers. Widowed and living in the town of Wizen River, she tends to her beloved garden and enjoys frequent visits from her old high school friend, Phoebe Tooker. Then one fine morning Phoebe drives her Chevy off the road, into a ditch, and up an oak tree, and Annie D. is forced to take stock. Life in Wizen River appears to be idyllic. But we soon learn that the idyll has been disrupted by two violent killings, and when a third young woman is found strangled and raped, we trust to Annie D., with her sharp tongue and good heart, to make sense of it all. A Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award Nominee

The Story of Annie D.

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Susan Taylor Chehak's startling new novel is a tale of illicit passion, transgression, and retribution, set once again in the very heart of middle America. Bader Von Vechten's marriage to Katherine Craig unites the leading families of Cedar Hill and promises to heal the wounds of three generations. But when Bader commences a love affair with a beautiful young man, Katherine is goaded to the desperate act that will change their lives irrevocably, setting in motion the series of tragic events that will play themselves out over two generations. Only twenty-five years later, in the wake of death, murder, and disgrace, can Bader, changed almost beyond recognition, return to Cedar Hill. There a chance encounter affords Bader his last hope for human contact - and redemption. Psychologically uncompromising and emotionally gripping, Dancing on Glass is a bold novel that sweeps the reader along from its unforgettable opening scene to its climactic ending. A brilliant evocation of the passion and violence that lurk beneath the surface of small-town life, it marks a significant step forward in the career of a writer whose ficton has already been hailed as masterly.

Dancing on Glass: A Novel

Ticknor & Fields

A clear, dry voice, stripped of sentiment or passion, narrates an absorbing saga of love, madness and murder set in the small town of Wizen River, Neb. The voice belongs to long-widowed Annie Diettermann, who has also endured the death of two young sons. Interspersed with her bleak family history is Annie's continuing chronicle about her wealthy friend Phoebe, whose disgraced daughter Lacey is sent to California to bear an illegitimate son fathered by disreputable Casey Boots, a youngster from the unsavory section of town. Lacey, still embittered by her exile, returns nine years later for her mother's funeral and is reunited with Casey. They attempt to start a new life, and it is at this juncture that a series of  crimes begins. Three young women are raped and murdered, and each victim has a lock of hair shorn. Annie D. accidentally discovers the murderer, and her solution--tragic, inevitable, wise--resoundingly closes the books on the slayings."This authentically and distinctively cadenced first novel marks a promising debut." -Publishers Weekly"Absolutely stunning... Reads with the force and generational sweep of some ancient rural myth." -New York Times Book Review

Fawcett

Harmony

Strangely drawn to down-on-her-luck Lilly Duke, whose baby is the son of a Death Row murderer, happily married and well-respected Harmony resident Clodine Wheeler begins to leave little gifts for the shunned Lilly. Reprint.

Bader Von Vechten returns to Cedar Hill, Iowa, to redeem the  family name, destroyed by scandal years before, but a forbidden and  destructive passion overpowers him, and sets events in motion that will  cause history to horribly repeat itself. Reprint.

Dancing on Glass

The arrival of Frankie Crane, a girl with a past beyond her years, in the slow, small town of Linwood, Iowa, transforms sixteen-year-old May Caldwell's life, leading to sexual awakening, family ruin, and murder

Washington Square Press

Don Quixote Meets the Mob

This unique and appealing approach to the craft of fiction writing reinvents the writing method and breathes new life into the writing instructional. Chehak is a facile and entertaining storyteller who uses personal anecdote to find in practicing the art of fiction deep and moving lessons for engaging in the art of life.

Self-Help

Xlibris, Corp.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chehak, Susan Taylor. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Chehak, Susan Taylor

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chehak, Susan Taylor. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Smithereens

Rampage

Smithereens

The Story of Annie D.

Dancing on Glass: A Novel

The Story of Annie D.

Harmony

Dancing on Glass

Smithereens

Don Quixote Meets the Mob