"Love. I knew the fiery taste of it, the swerve and desolation. I told myself, no, this is not love. I told myself, yes. There was more. When I looked at Macy, I already knew what her mouth would do and her eyes and the way her hands talked along with her words. I didn’t know how I knew…Love, that’s what I started to call it. But why not some other word? It was too quick, sudden as falling off the ladder. One minute I was one way and the next I wasn’t."
Undertow is the love story of two women brought together literally by accident—Dotty falls from the house she is painting and at the hospital meets a nurse named Macy. The attraction between them grows as Macy moves into Dotty’s house to tend her broken bones and spirit. Love unfolds against a backdrop of the slow recovery of the body and mind and the stories Macy and Dotty do and don’t tell.
Seamlessly and expertly Schutzer’s writing moves us into the past, revealing what is untold between Macy and Dotty. As their lives merge, the two must deal with the underlying currents in their pasts just as they must begin to see how words left out—the stories beneath the surface—can pull them away from love.
When a surprising connection between Macy and Dotty emerges, the truth could either cause a rift too wide to repair or bring them closer than either could ever imagine.
Undertow is a vivid and moving exploration of how the body and mind adjust to the powerful currents of lies and love.
Amy Schutzer has published in Hurricane Alice, Frontiers, and Portland Review. She received the prestigious Astraea Fiction Fellowship for this novel and the 1999 Barbara Deming Fellowship. She is at work on her second novel, The Color of Weather.
Undertow is the love story of two women brought together literally by accident—Dotty falls from the house she is painting and at the hospital meets a nurse named Macy. The attraction between them grows as Macy moves into Dotty’s house to tend her broken bones and spirit. Love unfolds against a backdrop of the slow recovery of the body and mind and the stories Macy and Dotty do and don’t tell.
Seamlessly and expertly Schutzer’s writing moves us into the past, revealing what is untold between Macy and Dotty. As their lives merge, the two must deal with the underlying currents in their pasts just as they must begin to see how words left out—the stories beneath the surface—can pull them away from love.
When a surprising connection between Macy and Dotty emerges, the truth could either cause a rift too wide to repair or bring them closer than either could ever imagine.
Undertow is a vivid and moving exploration of how the body and mind adjust to the powerful currents of lies and love.
Amy Schutzer has published in Hurricane Alice, Frontiers, and Portland Review. She received the prestigious Astraea Fiction Fellowship for this novel and the 1999 Barbara Deming Fellowship. She is at work on her second novel, The Color of Weather.
