When Danielle Marton's father is killed during the early days of the German occupation of France, her mother sends her to live in a quiet farming town. Now called Marie-Jean Chantier, Danielle struggles to balance the truth of what's happened to her family and her country with the lies she must tell to keep herself safe. At first, she's bitter about being left behind by her mother, and horrified at having to milk the cows and memorise Catholic prayers for church. But as the years pass, Danielle finds it easier to suppress her former life entirely, and Marie-Jean becomes less and less of an act. By the time she's fifteen and there is talk amongst the now divided town of an Allied invasion, Danielle has transformed into a strict Catholic, a fervent disciple of fascism, as well as a German collaborator.
Author Biography:
Tara Ison is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and short story writer. She is the author of three novels: The List (Scribner), A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber), a Finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize,
and Rockaway (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press), featured as one of the "Best Books of Summer" in O, The Oprah Magazine, July 2013. Ball, a short story collection, was published in 2015, and her collection of essays, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies, was winner of the 2015 PEN Southwest Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her short fiction, essays, poetry and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, BOMB, Salon, Electric Literature, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Nerve.com, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, The Mississippi Review, The Santa Monica Review, Publishers Weekly, The Week, LA Weekly, O, the Oprah Magazine, and numerous anthologies.
Ison received her MFA in fiction and literature from Bennington College. She is currently professor of fiction in Arizona State University's creative writing program. In another life, she was the co-writer of the cult classic film Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991).
