The Long-Shining Waters - Paperback

by Danielle Sosin (Author)

MILKWEED NATIONAL FICTION PRIZE WINNER
INDIE HEARTLAND BESTSELLER
ONE BOOK SOUTH DAKOTA SELECTION
MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD FINALIST
MIDWEST BOOKSELLERS BOOK AWARD FINALIST

Grey Rabbit, an Ojibwe woman living by Lake Superior in 1622, is a mother and wife whose dream-life has taken on fearful dimensions. As she struggles to understand "what she is shown at night," her psyche and her world edge toward irreversible change. In 1902, Berit and Gunnar, a Norwegian fishing couple, also live on the lake. Berit is unable to conceive, and the lake anchors her isolated life and tests the limits of her endurance and spirit. And in 2000, when Nora, a seasoned bar owner, loses her job and is faced with an open-ended future, she is drawn reluctantly into a road trip around the great lake.

The Long-Shining Waters is the story of these three women, separated by years and circumstance but connected across time by a shared geography: the inland sea. Rich with historical detail, each character comes vividly to life in this luminous debut novel.

"Danielle Sosin has written the first great novel about Lake Superior--and its many ghosts."
--Minnesota Monthly

Front Jacket

"You don't see writing like this often, so infused with an intimate relationship to nature. . . . Sosin writes about Lake Superior as if it were a character, a parent, a lover, an enemy. The Great Lake is movement at peripheral vision. It is sound at the limit of audible frequency. It is the illusion of the ability to understand."
-- Los Angeles Times

"Sosin writes sensuously detailed prose and distills the emotions of her characters into a profound and universal need for acceptance and love."
-- Publishers Weekly

"The construct is brilliant, the prose fine, the characters beautifully developed, the regional sense powerful. . . . This ode to the greatest of all lakes is nothing less than grand."
-- Minneapolis Star Tribune

Frigid, lethal, and wildly beautiful, Lake Superior is as alluring as it is dangerous. Featuring three women living on its shores, Sosin's debut novel illuminates the mysterious powers of the greatest of the Great Lakes. In 1622, Grey Rabbit--an Ojibwe woman, a mother and wife--struggles to understand a dream-life that takes on fearful dimensions. Berit and Gunnar, a Norwegian couple, fish the North Shore in 1902. Though the lake anchors Berit's isolated life, those same waters ultimately test her endurance and spirit. And then in 2000, Nora, a seasoned bar owner, finds her life unraveling and is drawn inexplicably into a journey around the lake. As these narratives unfold with the mesmerizing rhythm of waves, a fourth mysterious voice slowly manifests.
Haunting, rich in historical detail, and universal in its exploration of the human desire for meaning when faced with uncertainty and the indomitable power of place, this is an unforgettable work of fiction, by an author whose writing effortlessly "captures unexpected moments of beauty and clarity" (New York Times Book Review).

Author Biography

Danielle Sosin is the celebrated author of The Long-Shining Waters, which, in hardcover, was the 2011 Milkweed National Fiction Prize Winner, a Minnesota Book Award Nominee for Fiction, a Midwest Connections May 2011 pick, and an Indie Heartland Bestseller in June of 2011. With more than thirty events around the Great Lakes and coverage in the LA Times, National Geographic Traveler, and a feature in Publishers Weekly, Danielle's debut novel has been a wild success, and is poised for a long life in paperback nationally, but especially around the Great Lakes. Her fiction has been featured in the Alaska Quarterly Review and on National Public Radio, and she has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Ragdale Foundation, and Anderson Center. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota.