Hula

For two young girls in the early 1960s, the family backyard is both playground and prison. Steamy, verdant, cloistered - the yard's secret places tantalize the imagination, but also reveal disturbing glimpses of a war-haunted father and dreamy, distant mother. The younger sister narrates, introducing us to her older sister's ritual taunts, her mother's increasing withdrawal, her father's volatile temper.

Told over the course of two hot summers, the story builds in power and portent as the girls' sexuality surfaces and the parents' marriage strains toward its end. Voyeuristic, at times surreal, Shea's lyrical first novel probes the dark corner where adolescent fantasies and terrors converge.