"...moves with the swift voracity of a Jean Echenoz story, threshing the stories of its characters in the way life would have threshed so many in their generation (and so many in our own): through war and poverty, love and madness, devotion and reunion. This is a story of common disaster and uncommon heroism. Edith and Milton cleave to one another as the years collect into decades, as the breath of life distills to a box of artifacts. Terri Lewis puts the first half of the 20th century in your pocket. History, in her telling, grows alive and vibrant."––John Cotter, author of Under the Small Lights and Losing Music

"This novella’s strength is its subtlety, its expansiveness, and its rootedness in details that are concrete, particular, and significant. This is a beautiful story, a slow and deliberate take on the ways youth and innocence get warped and sacrificed to harsh reality—whether that be a gregarious young man whose effervescence is warped by warfare or a young woman whose craving for love shows her how much love she has to give."––Amina Gautier, author of The Best at You Can Do and Now We Will Be Happy, Final judge, 2025 Miami University Press Novella Prize 

To learn more about the author, and to see the family mementos which partially inspired the book, visit terrilewis1.com