New York: Scribner, (2007). Hardcover first edition - The author's first novel, a very highly praised coming of age story. "Alice Winston, living on the family horse ranch, a marginal enterprise in Desert Valley, Colorado, is a 12-year-old girl with more than she can handle and no one to help her cope. Polly, a classmate of hers, drowned in the nearby canal and was carried out by Alice's father, Joe, a member of the volunteer posse. Her older sister, 16-year-old Nona, eloped with a rodeo cowboy. Her mother never leaves her bedroom, a case of clinical depression." The first chapter of this story won a National Magazine Award for Fiction when it was first published in The Atlantic Monthly. The town of Desert Valley is loosely based on Grand Junction, the author's hometown. 305 pp. ISBN: 978-1416533245.