Half-Life of Guilt

Lynn Stegner's books include the novels Undertow, Fata Morgana, and Because a Fire Was in My Head, which won the Faulkner Award for Best Novel and was a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her novella triptych, Pipers at the Gates of Dawn, was awarded a Faulkner Society's Gold Medal. She divides her time between San Francisco and northern Vermont.

“Lynn Stegner is a beautiful writer. This fiercely wrought family saga will take your breath away with its sharpness and depth.”—Rick Bass, author of For a Little While: New and Selected Stories“The Half-Life of Guilt is a powerful tale of family loyalty, romantic love, and the long reach of a single, shocking childhood tragedy. Lynn Stegner has a profound understanding of how sisters relate—or fail to relate—and how the truth of the past can be lost to our misperceptions. This sobering and insightful story is beautifully told.”—Elizabeth Crook, author of The Madstone and The Which Way Tree“As Stegner explores both personal responsibility and our responsibility to care for the natural world, she illuminates the ways we love, fail to love, and repair our failures. Her unique sensibility makes for a fascinating read.”—Andrea Barrett, author of Natural History and Ship Fever “The Half Life of Guilt adroitly braids paired narratives: a risk-filled present journey down the coast of Mexico and the fraught past of a family in northern California. The twins at the center of the story—Nina and Clair—compel our close attention, and the novel somehow manages to be both action-packed and contemplative. Lynn Stegner gives us scientists and vintners and idealists and cynics: troubled creatures all. And she does so in prose as vivid as her scenery; the dead remain wholly alive.”—Nicholas Delbanco, author of Why Writing Matters “In this beautiful and layered novel Lynn Stegner takes us on a passionate tour of self-discovery and family history written so closely and with such astonishing sincerity that the entire novel becomes a kind of surprising tenderness. Stegner has the writer’s gift of creating a dear victory from the uneasiness of pristine places. This is a rich, rich book.”—Ron Carlson, author of Return to Oakpine