★An emotional debut novel exploring the devastating human consequences of the overturning of Roe v. Wade in America.
★A haunting portrait of a mother’s fierce love, and the lengths she’ll go to protect her child when the world refuses to.

In the isolated Missouri Bootheel, Alice Campbell is barely holding her life together. Her husband has vanished without explanation. Her young daughter, Molly, has suddenly lost the ability to walk and is tormented by night terrors no doctor can explain. Then Alice uncovers the unthinkable truth behind her daughter’s suffering.

In a moment of confrontation and chaos, Alice flees with Molly, unsure whether the man responsible is dead or alive. Now on the run, mother and daughter drift between cheap motels along Interstate 55, pursued by the past, by the police, and by a future neither is prepared to face.

Taut, urgent, and deeply compassionate, this novel is a haunting portrait of maternal love, survival, and moral reckoning in a fractured America.

Dr Elaine Lawless is an ethnographer and scholar whose work spans folklore, religion, women’s and gender studies, and social justice. She has authored ten academic books and numerous articles, co-produced documentary films, and founded the Troubling Violence Performance Project focused on violence against women.