In her debut collection, Cate McGowan introduces us to an assortment of characters, a passenger manifest voyaging through loss and salvation. The book s title borrows from Moby Dick It is not down on any map; true places never are. McGowan s characters are indeed off the map; they venture into wondrous worlds as knotty and distressing as the places they aim to leave.
In prose highlighted by moving observations and vivid imagery, McGowan s characters represent an unusual hodgepodge of everyman children, men, and women who inhabit different eras and countries, all sharing the need...