Sybelia Drive | Karin Cecile Davidson

290 pages | Braddock Avenue Books

In the small lake town where LuLu, Rainey, and Saul are growing up, day-to-day life is anything but easy. Navigating the usual obstacles of youth would be enough for anyone, but for this trio a world marred by the Vietnam war, detached parents, and untimely death create circumstances overloaded with trouble. Yet through their unyielding resourcefulness and the willingness to expose their vulnerabilities, these three friends discover deeper bonds than even they could ever imagine.

Told through kaleidoscopic images and in prose that will keep you on the edge of your seat, Sybelia Drive is a story of three friends who push beyond the typical woes of childhood into teenage years transformed by the shared baggage of a generation, years when men walk on the moon; students are killed during a peace demonstration at Kent State; and the obligations of military service claim the lives of fathers, husbands, and children.

Investigating the personal impact of social upheaval with unparalleled sensitivity and depth, Sybelia Drive is a novel that will stay with you for a long, long time. It is an extraordinary debut.

Karin Cecile Davidson is originally from the Gulf Coast and now lives in Columbus, Ohio. Her stories have been published in Five Points, The Massachusetts Review, Story Magazine, Colorado Review, The Los Angeles Review, Passages North, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, an Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, a Studios of Key West Artist Residency, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Orlando Prize for Short Fiction, the Waasmode Short Fiction Prize, and a Peter Taylor Fellowship. She has an MFA from Lesley University and is Interviews Co-Editor for Newfound Journal.