Call It Madness - Paperback

by Brett Ann Stanciu (Author)

Millennial Avah Lavoie's crumbling relationship is the final push she needs to answer her estranged mother's unexpected call: her great-grandfather Opa has died. Driving north to rural Vermont, Avah hopes to untangle the murky history of a family she barely knows. Rumors swirl-- about a long-lost farm, a sawmill accident, and Opa's drinking. As a snowstorm closes in, complications escalate. A neighbor wants to buy Opa's house and flip the lakefront land for profit. Trina, the neighbor's sharp-tongued housekeeper, offers rides, coffee, and companionship-- but she has her own motives. When Avah tracks down her mother, holed up on a bender at the Blue Lion Motel, she catches a glimpse of the girl her mother once was: motherless, broken, still searching. Avah can't forgive decades of drinking-- but empathy stirs.Call It Madness unfolds in the immensity of a frozen Vermont winter, where buried truths rise and endings refuse to follow the script.

Author Biography

Brett Ann Stanciu is the author of UNSTITCHED: MY JOURNEY TO UNDERSTAND OPIOID ADDICTION AND HOW COMMUNITIES CAN HEAL (Steerforth Press, 2021) and HIDDEN VIEW (Green Writers Press, 2015). Recipient of a 2020 Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant and a 2024 Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, Stanciu lives in Hardwick, Vermont, in a century-old house built for granite workers and surrounded by lilacs.