Diurnal Kim White Author

A deeply affecting and elegantly written short story, Diurnal paints a vivid portrait of a family whose lives are haunted by loss and shaped by grief.After a fatal accident takes place in their backyard, Susan and Brian decide to try, one last time, ... Read more

A deeply affecting and elegantly written short story, Diurnal paints a vivid portrait of a family whose lives are haunted by loss and shaped by grief.After a fatal accident takes place in their backyard, Susan and Brian decide to try, one last time, to start a family. Against the backdrop of destruction of the natural world, the menace of high-voltage transformers, and unsettling signs and omens, Susan bonds with her unborn child, recording her hopes for him in the diaries she has been keeping since childhood. When the pregnancy ends in tragedy, Susan struggles to maintain her sanity. In her determination to remember her son and build the family she has dreamed of, she sacrifices the relationship she was meant to have with her daughter. Thirty years later, her surviving daughter must come to terms with the consequences of her mother's grief and misplaced affection—deciding who she really is and how she wants to carry forward her family's dreams and memories. Less