Heidi Julavits

In late afternoon on November 7, 1985, sixteen-year-old Mary Veal was abducted after field hockey practice at her all-girls New England prep school. Or was she?A few weeks later an unharmed Mary reappears as suddenly and mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming to have little memory of what happened to her. Her mother, concerned that Mary has somehow been sullied by the experience, sends her to therapy with a psychologist named Dr. Hammer. Mary turns...

A power struggle between a leading student at an elite institute for psychics and her jealous legendary mentor culminates in the student being forced to relive her mother's suicide during a brutal psychic attack.

"One day Heidi Julavits sees her son silhouetted by the sun and realizes he is at the threshold of what she calls "the end times of childhood." When did this happen, she asks herself. Who is my son becoming, and who am I as a mother? What comes next, Heidi realizes, suddenly starts to feel like uncharted waters. As her son continues to grow up, rape allegations rock the university campus where she teaches. She begins to wonder how she can prepare...

"An exploration of the questions we ask ourselves while getting dressed every day, and the answers from more than six hundred women"--From back cover.