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Hot Season Novel by Susan DeFreitas A n equally stunning debut novel is Susan DeFreitas' "Hot Season," set at a small, environmental liberal arts college in Arizona. Readers will recognize them- selves in at least one of these characters: the naïve and impressionable chameleon, Katie; beautiful, sought-after Jenna; mature and responsible Rell; charismatic Crockett; hum- ble, straightforward Arin. DeFreitas renders them all in specific, often humorous detail. "Crockett fit his hat back on his head as if to leave, but then just stood there at the foot of their steps, grinning, like some kind of neighborhood stray—hoping for a warm bed, maybe, or a dish with his name on it." "Katie's face contracted and then, after a long moment, crumpled. The way, Rell imagined, the Snoquomish Dam once had, giving way to all that pressure, all that water held back for so long." "Scott was airborne. With those skinny legs and broad shoulders, at rest he looked like some kind of startled stork. But when he ran, the boy was pure poetry." DeFreitas is similarly adept at describing the natural world: "From the road, springs and creeks were visible as ribbons of green in an otherwise dry landscape. Up close, they revealed a riot of wildlife, from songbirds to salamanders, fish to frogs. Those oases supported greater species diversity in a few hundred feet than many land- scapes supported in a few hundred miles." Whether ignoring a mouse on the kitchen counter, or wondering if one will get her rental deposit back, given her housemate's rollicking sex, the bed frame knocking against the drywall, or talking about news that will spread "faster than a case of crabs," DeFreitas' characters cap- ture life at this par ticular college. But more importantly, DeFreitas gives us a moment on the timeline of all our lives—when over a four-year span, we grow from someone in search of an identity to fully formed humans with ideas, opinions, true friends, and a wisdom gleaned often from our own stupidity. On Living Memoir by Kerry Egan K erry Egan has written "On Living," a book that only she could write, combining her study at Harvard Divinity School, her years of experience as a hospice chaplain, and several unfortunate years prior, during which her life was hijacked by post-partum psychosis, caused by a reaction to anesthesia used during an emer- gency C-section. For much of her child's early life, Egan was incapacitated. After years of medication and treatment, when she eventually got her life back, she was irreversibly altered, and carried shame about her mental illness. This led to her rare capacity for compassion, and informed the work she would later do as a hospice chaplain. In the first chapter, Egan says, "…hospice chap- lains are sort of the opposite of storytellers. We're story holders." "Some chaplains might also be priests and pastors, but in their roles as chaplains, they don't preach or teach. Instead, they create a space—a sacred time and place—in which people can look at the lives they've led and try to figure out what it all means to them." "When you talk to hundreds of people who are dying and looking back over their lives, you come to realize something star tling: Ever y one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us. Ever yone who does not die young will go through some sor t of spiri- tual crisis…" The stories Egan "holds" afford her rare insight into stasis, forgiveness, regret and hope. Perhaps it's not until we're dying that we best learn how to live. This book will inspire you to take inven- tory of where you are in your life, help you antic- ipate what you may later regret, and shape your hopes for how you will spend the days until your last. Potent stuff. Read, read, repeat. C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 6 91 Books available at Pilgrim's Way. Melanie Bishop's young adult novel was published in 2014. Bishop teaches creative writing and was founding edi- tor of "Alligator Juniper," a national literar y magazine. For more information, please go to www.melaniebishopwriter.wordpress.com. go to www.melaniebishopwriter.wordpress.com. On Living On Living erry Egan has written "On Living," a book are dying and looking back over their