Safe Haven

Awaiting news of her son gone missing during World War II, a mother recalls his childhood victory over polio. A young woman weighs the promise of John Kennedy’s new frontier against the reality of her best friend’s breakdown. An extramarital affair propels a suburban mother to awaken to true desire on the eve of the Apollo 11 space walk. The discovery of an abandoned infant in a dumpster unites a mother, daughter, and granddaughter in startling ways. In her wry and wrenching debut collection of linked short stories, Safe Haven, Susan Dugan inhabits the lives of three generations of American women seeking refuge from the harsh realities of their moments in time and finding it at last where they forgot to look; patiently waiting in their own backyards. In this beautiful collection of linked stories, Susan Dugan seamlessly braids together the lives of three women in such authentic prose that you feel you are eavesdropping on an actual conversation, privy to the most personal details of the women’s lives. I loved these laugh-out-loud funny at times–and heartbreaking at others–stories with a capital L. While reading this book I thought, ‘I know these women. They are my grandmother, my mother, my aunt, my friends, and myself.’ Darla Worden, author of Road Shoes and founder of the Left Bank Writers Retreat I found Safe Haven brilliantly done and very moving. In vivid language Susan Dugan pours heart and soul into this collection of penetrating stories that illuminate the strength and intelligence of American women. Their stories will linger inside you for a long, long stay. Ann Creel, author of The Magic of Ordinary Days