The Clinging Thing

Iqra would like to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good woman, a good mother. It has been made clear to her that people owe their lives to one another - to the driver who slows to a stop when she notices a jaywalker, and the roller-coaster operator who spots an improperly fastened harness . . . and Iqra's mother, who raised her, and the mother before her, who tried to stop the blood. After the loss of a pregnancy, Iqra returns to her mother's home in the place where she grew up. The past is porous, her recollections fail her, yet she is suffocating with memory. A couple of hours out of the city, Seam River pulls Iqra back into a state of bewilderment. She revisits the stories of her parents and all the women before her, as dreams, memories, the uncertain and the impossible converge. The future refuses to take form. She finds wonder.