Ten Small Beds - Paperback

by Kate Kasten (Author)

At forty-five, clinical psychologist Davida Grayson, leaves a thriving practice in Oakland, California to return to her childhood home in Still Water, Kansas after the death of her reclusive father. Her mother is in a nursing home, suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In the ensuing months, unsettling events threaten Davida's safety, sobriety, and sanity. Foremost among these is the reappearance of her high school sweetheart, Paul, who had traumatized Davida as a teenager by playing an inexplicably cruel practical joke. Events suggest that he may be stalking her, but she is starting to question her own perceptions. Despite increasing self-doubt, she continues to work, via long distance phone calls, with three of her Oakland therapy clients: a Korean college student whose burden of responsibility toward his immigrant parents has led him to attempt suicide; a stoic, workaholic man anguished by being his family's scapegoat; and a woman coping with the family havoc wreaked by her husband's bipolar illness. Interwoven with the main plot of the novel, their stories resonate with Davida's struggle against mental deterioration and her quest to solve the central mystery of her life.

Author Biography

In addition to Ten Small Beds, Kasten is the author of two novels, The De-Conversion of Kit Lamb and Better Days. She has also published a book of fairy tales for adults: Wildwood: Fairy Tales and Fables Re-imagined. Her short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, American Literary Review, Northwest Review, The Madison Review and two fiction anthologies: Side Show and Paraspheres. With Sandra de Helen, Kasten co-wrote a musical satire of the Nancy Drew mystery genre, The Clue in the Old Birdbath, which has been produced by theatre companies in Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland. Kasten lives and writes in Iowa City, Iowa, where she teaches English as a Second Language at the University of Iowa. Information about Kasten's fiction can be found at www.katekasten.com.