Jill Bialosky

A novel by an acclaimed American poet, House Under Snow is a story of mothers and daughters, of sexual identity, of a family slowly disintegrating after the premature death of its patriarch. Anna Crane, soon to be married, reflects back on her childhood in Ohio during the 1960s and '70s with her two sisters and her charismatic, self-destructing mother. Evoking the claustrophobia of small-town life, Anna's first passionate love affair with a troubled...

Eleanor Cahn is a professor of literature, the wife of a preeminent cardiac surgeon, and a devoted mother. But on a trip to Paris to present a paper on Anna Karenina, Eleanor re-connects with Stephen-a childhood friend with whom she has had a complicated relationship-that forces her to realize that she has suppressed her passionate self for years. As the novel unfolds, we learn of her hidden erotic past: with alluring, elusive Stephen, with ethereal...

"This book-length poem by the critically acclaimed poet is a seeker's story, revealing personal and historical traumas and how we search for understanding and meaning in their wake. In Asylum, poet Jill Bialosky embarks on a Virgilian journey, building a narrative from 103 elegant short poems and prose sections that cohere in their intensity and their need to explore darkness and sustenance both. Taken together, these piercing understated pieces--about...

"Cleveland is a working-class town, though its great institutions were founded by twentieth-century robber barons and magnates . . . It's this mix of the wealthy and the working class that makes this city--an urban center of brick and girders surrounded by verdant suburbs--a perfect backdrop for lawlessness. Cleveland has certainly seen its share of high-profile crime. Eliot Ness, Cleveland's director of public safety in the 1930s, hunted unsuccessfully...