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THE SHARK CURTAIN

Chris Scofield

In Scofield’s powerful debut, teenager Lily Asher takes her first steps toward a strange, loving journey to self-acceptance and belonging.
Set against the changing terrain of middle-class values and the siren calls of art and puberty, The Shark Curtain invites us into Lily Asher’s wonderful, terrible world. The older of two girls growing up in suburban Portland, Oregon, in the mid-1960s, her inner life stands in quirky contrast to the loving but dysfunctional world around her.

Often misunderstood by her flawed but well-intentioned parents, teenage Lily orbits their tumultuous love affair, embracing what embraces her back: the ghost of her drowned dog, a lost aunt, numbers, shoe boxes, werewolves, rituals, and stories she pens herself (including one about a miscarried sibling she dubs “Frog Boy”). With “regular” visits from a wisecracking Jesus, an affectionate but combative friendship is born—a friendship that strains Lily’s grasp of reality as much as her patience.

From the violence of a Peeping Tom and catching Mom in flagrante delicto with the neighbor, to jungles in her closet, butlers under her bed, and barking in public, Lily struggles to balance her family’s expectations with the visions that continue to isolate her.

Chris Scofield is a novelist and short story writer. She’s worked with authors Ursula K. Le Guin and Tom Spanbauer and is a former special education, art, and preschool teacher. Scofield studies cello, travels internationally, and lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband and two goldfish. She is the author of The Shark Curtain.
Available products
Book

Published 2015-04-07 by Black Sheep/ Akashic Books

Book

Published 2015-04-07 by Black Sheep/ Akashic Books

Comments

You’ve never met anyone like The Shark Curtain‘s Lily Asher. With Jesus as her smart-aleck companion, a dead dog as her guide, a sister who thinks she’s a ‘weirdo,’ and parents absorbed in their own drama, Lily leads you wildly through her imagination, her dreams, and the crazy roller coaster of her teenage years. With deep wit and endless invention, Chris Scofield has created a girl—and a story—unlike any other. Read this book and experience its wonder.

Throughout, first-time author Scofield creates striking images that will stay with readers . . .

Brilliant, engaging, engulfing, fulfilling, beautiful. The Shark Curtain will turn you inside out and make you see the world differently. As well you should. As well we all should. Because life isn’t about having the answers, it’s about grappling with the questions. Chris Scofield’s fantastically fantastic novel pins the tail on the donkey with a pneumatic nail gun—I absolutely insist that you read this book!

In The Shark Curtain, Chris Scofield offers us a rare pleasure: a startling and original heroine, Lily Asher, whose quest to understand and experience the world around her is second only to her journey inward, where she grapples with a menagerie of family members, animals, historical and religious figures, and pop cultural icons in a series of both real and imaginary encounters. These twisted and sometimes absurd relationships allow Lily to grasp fleeting and brilliant truths about the human condition, the problem of death, what it means to be ‘crazy,’ what it means to be ‘normal,’ and our very real need for love and acceptance, no matter who we are.

The Shark Curtain is a full-on adventure tale of the best kind... Chris Scofield’s The Shark Curtain is a shout- out to all us grrrrrls. Hooray!