Featherstone

Featherstone is a small town, and Kirsty Gunn's third novel looks closely at the private lives of the people who live there. The story unfolds across a single weekend. Years after Francie Johanssen, a lively and striking young woman, left for good, word that she may be coming back starts to stir up old memories and threatens to unsettle everyone who remembers her.

The novel moves among several residents. Margaret tends bar at the local hotel and has a reputation for casual affairs. Mary Susan is a restless, difficult teenager who is determined to escape town at the first chance. Sonny, Francie's aging uncle, has his own quiet preoccupations. Harland is a minister who has lost his faith, and Kate, his wife, is sunk in gloom.

Francie's absence has shaped the hidden wishes, hopes and dreams of those she left behind, and none more so than Ray, her high school boyfriend, who has never managed to let her go. As the atmosphere in Featherstone grows more charged, the book traces how these long-buried feelings rise to the surface.