Susan Henderson

Tillie Harris's life is in disarray—her husband is away on business, the boxes in her new home aren't unpacked, and the telephone isn't even connected yet. Though she's not due for another month, sudden labor pains force Tillie to reach out to her estranged father for help, a choice that means facing the painful memories she's been running from since she was a little girl. An extraordinary debut from a talented new voice, Up from the Blue untangles the year in Tillie's life that changed everything: 1975, the year her mother disappeared.

A Novel

Up from the Blue

With the quiet precision of Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres and the technical clarity of Mary Roach’s Stiff, this is a novel about a young woman who comes most alive while working in her father’s mortuary in a small, forgotten Western town. "The dead come to me vulnerable, sharing their stories and secrets . . . " Mary Crampton has spent all of her thirty years in Petroleum, a small Western town once supported by a powerful grain company. Living at home, she works as the embalmer in her father’s mortuary: an unlikely job that has long marked her as an outsider. Yet, to Mary there is a satisfying art to positioning and styling each body to capture the essence of a subject’s life. Though some townsfolk pretend that the community is thriving, the truth is that Petroleum is crumbling away—a process that began twenty years ago when an accident in the grain elevator killed a beloved high school athlete. The mill closed for good, the train no longer stopped in town, and Robert Golden, the victim’s younger brother, was widely blamed for the tragedy and shipped off to live elsewhere. Now, out of the blue, Robert has returned to care for his terminally ill mother. After Mary—reserved, introspective, and deeply lonely—strikes up an unlikely friendship with him, shocking the locals, she finally begins to consider what might happen if she dared to leave Petroleum. Set in America’s heartland, The Flicker of Old Dreams explores themes of resilience, redemption, and loyalty in prose as lyrical as it is powerful.

The Flicker of Old Dreams

Valerie Hart

Juliana L'Heureux

Ann Sossong

Maine nurses have served tirelessly as caregivers and partners in healing at home and abroad, from hospitals to battlefields. The Division of Public Health Nursing and Child Hygiene was established in 1920 to combat high rates of infant mortality in Washington and Aroostook Counties. During the Vietnam War, Maine nurses helped build the Twelfth Evacuation Hospital at Cu Chi and bravely assisted surgeries in the midst of fighting. In the early 1980s, nurse disease prevention educators in Portland rose to the challenge of combating the growing AIDS epidemic. Through historical anecdotes and fascinating oral histories, discover the remarkable sacrifices and achievements of Maine's nurses.

Interviews and History on Caring and Competence

Maine Nursing

Tillie is an eight-year-old girl who doesn't stop. She buzzes with an incessant creative energy, dreaming and dancing and always talking, talking, talking: and all for her beautiful mother Mara. But for Mara even the ordinary world is too much; suffocating under an unshakeable misery, all she longs for is life to leave her alone. When Tillie's father receives a promotion, he sees a new chance to impose order - and by the time Tillie arrives in their new house her mother is nowhere to be seen. Tillie's imagination feverishly tries to solve the mystery, but the truth is far more distressing than she ever could have thought. An achingly real depiction of a family struggling with mental illness, Up from the Blue is a wrenching debut recalling the works of Lionel Shriver, Mark Haddon, and Emma Donoghue.

Stephen Mouzon

* A hands-on, well-illustrated reference that helps architects and contractors avoid making common errors in traditional construction details * Graphical approach allows users to quickly visualize design solutions * Lists the rules-of-thumb for each detail, and correct and incorrect examples of how to design or construct each detail

Design and Detail Rules-of-Thumb

Traditional Construction Patterns

Destination Reality

Bank on It

“Elegant and engrossing….Henderson is a talent to watch.” —Danielle Trussoni, author of Angelology “This is not a book you’ll soon forget.” —Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants The gripping debut novel from Litpark.com founder and Pushcart Prize-nominee Susan Henderson, Up From the Blue is a dazzling tour de force that unfolds against the backdrop of 1970s America—a tumultuous era of desegregation, school busing, and the early rise of modern-day feminism. The story of an imaginative young girl struggling to make sense of her mother’s mysterious disappearance, Up From the Blue is enthralling fiction that delves into complex family relationships, in the vein of Jennifer McMahon, Katrina Kittle, and Laura Kasischke.

Susan Henderson

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