Flood (A Memoir)

“ FLOOD is a magical incantation with chiseled prose that cuts to the bone— bright, sharp, and thirst-quenching; I couldn’ t get enough. Kalafus delivers a memoir of motherhood, medicine, and making it work by any means necessary— showing us that even when the waters rise, the flood itself may carry us forward.” — Adrian Shirk: author of And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy, an NPR Best Book “ FLOOD is a brave book and a necessary one.” — Michael Klein: Lambda Award Author of When I was a Twin Christine is pregnant with twins and reeling from her husband’ s affair when her right breast engages in a mutiny. Delivering identical boys and a tumor on the same day, she believes the worst is over. Until the natural spring under her house — what the neighborhood kids call The Witch House — begins to rise. Desperate for solid ground, Christine’ s desire for wisdom sweeps everything in its path— her parents’ memories of the historic flood of 1955 that devastated Connecticut’ s upper and lower Housatonic River Valley, the impossible expectations of modern motherhood, and a chilling brush with medical gaslighting — reminding us that when the stakes include certain death, they cannot get any higher.