Amy and Isabelle

National Bestseller

In her stunning first novel, Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout evokes a teenager''s alienation from her distant mother—and a parent''s rage at the discovery of her daughter''s sexual secrets. In most ways, Isabelle and Amy are like any mother and her 16-year-old daughter, a fierce mix of love and loathing exchanged in their every glance. That they eat, sleep, and work side by side in the gossip-ridden mill town of Shirley Falls only increases the tension. And just when it appears things can''t get any worse, Amy''s sexuality begins to unfold, causing a vast and icy rift between mother and daughter that will remain unbridgeable unless Isabelle examines her own secretive and shameful past.


From the Trade Paperback edition.