Forthcoming in 2011:
DREAMS OF SIGNIFICANT GIRLS
The novel takes place over the course of three summers at a Swiss boarding school near Lausanne in the early to mid-1970s. The main characters, all of whom become friends and return to the camp each summer, include: Shirin, an Iranian princess, whose Islamic parents are related to the Shah; a pair of German-Canadian sisters, Kathe and Ingrid, from rural Ontario, whose father was an SS officer during World War II; and Vivien, a Cuban-Jewish New Yorker, whose father settled in Havana after a harrowing escape from Poland and the Nazis. The girls were sent to Switzerland to learn French and absorb European culture but they end up learning a great deal more. We follow them as they navigate the complex social-cultural shoals of the Swiss boarding school, their rapidly developing adolescence, and the confusions and conflicts of their worlds with the legacies of their families' past.