While You Were Gone

by Sybil Baker

Fiction. As young adults growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the three Nash sisters are still haunted by their mother's early death. Shannon, the middle sister, wants to be an investigative journalist. Paige, the youngest, wants to channel Bessie Smith, her mother's favorite singer. Claire, the oldest, desires stability through family and career. When their father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, the sisters cope with the loss in different ways. Recovering from divorce and the collapsing journalism industry, Shannon manages a bottom-feeder rag and considers having a child for her cousin and his lover, an Army veteran. After Paige is kicked out of her band, she becomes obsessed with a reclusive songwriter she wants to make famous against his will. Claire's family and career are threatened by her attraction to a new hire she supervises, an African American who ignites her passion for literature and the deeper questions it asks of her. But, when their family's uncovered secrets threaten all they've known, the sisters will have to choose between lives they've dreamed of and those they love.




Inspired by Chekhov's Three Sisters with echoes of King Lear , WHILE YOU WERE GONE traces the journeys of three sisters growing up in and returning to a hometown that, like them, seems to reflect a new South. But beneath the surface changes are secrets that run as deep as the Tennessee River. WHILE YOU WERE GONE explores how three sisters living in the American South in the twenty-first century deal when their own dreams collide with their own misconceptions about family, race, gender, and the larger world.

294 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2018

About the author

Sybil Baker’s latest novel is While You Were Gone. Her book of nonfiction Immigration Essays is the 2018-2019 Read2Achieve selection for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She is also the author of The Life Plan, Talismans, and Into This World (Foreword Book of the Year finalist, and Eric Hoffer Award Honorable Mention). She was awarded two MakeWork Artist Grants and a 2017 Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission. She lives and teaches in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is on faculty at the Yale Writers’ Workshop and VCFA’s low residency International MFA

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many things I loved about the book. The characters were rich, interesting, unusual. As I love books with issues, this tackled so many contemporary issues facing women and offered unusual resolutions. The only reason I gave it 4 rather than 5 stars is that I found some plot points either implausible or hard to understand. The father marrying a prostitute to sell the family home? Didn't understand that. And the whole saga with Claire and Joseph needed a bit more fleshing out. Joseph really didn't make sense. He was almost portrayed as shadow. Possibly purposeful but I'd love to know more about him. Books and sexual dominance wasn't enough for me. The writing was a pleasure and I will read more by Ms. Baker. Bravo to her!