Short Stories by Mary Kennedy Eastham There are no perfect people here. The characters in Squinting over Water are you and me trying to make sense of things - good and bad - coming up with a Plan B when life gets messy. One early reader said she would walk across continents to get to this book. These whimsical stories transformed her, made her believe once again in the true beauty and playfulness of life. "She doesn't sugarcoat things. This is one talented writer." -Kurt Vonnegut, Author "Cat's Cradle", "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Breakfast of Champions" "You can't stop thinking about Eastham's characters like 16 year old Rebecca Louise in After The Dance. Raised by her single mother, she longs to get to know John Monroe, her father, the man who wasn't ready for parenthood when she was born but who now wants to meet her. And then there's poor Harry in Cat's Eyes, sipping cheap champagne, watching his mother patch together the few strands of hair on Husband Number Five's head with those long, lean fingers of his childhood. Johanna Dane is losing the daylight in Delicato as she searches for her twin brother Mica, missing after a devastating flood in their small, sweet town of Dane's Crossing. There are mood-tints bursting forth here, a poignant sense of time's passage that Hollywood Indie sadcore crooner Lana Del Ray would magically rework into a dreamy song. These two creatives need to meet." -The San Francisco WE'RE NOT SKINNY BITCHES Book Club About the Author: Mary Kennedy Eastham, M.A., MFA has had the good fortune of growing up in a small New England town. She spread her wings and moved to New York City, San Francisco and Malibu which is where many of these stories took shape. Her first book, The Shadow of a Dog I Can't Forget, now in its Fifth Printing, was a 2011 WILD CARD winner in the Hollywood Book Festival and a 2010 Celebrity Achiever Award winner. Mary has been awarded over $25,000 in Literary Awards.