Artifact

Sensual and sometimes shocking ... Heyman writes with such intimacy and precision that she frequently makes you feel like a trespasser' Daily Mail

Lottie Kristin is independent from the start. Born in the middle of the century to a middle-class family in the very middle of middle America, her smarts and her sensuality set her apart from the rest of the pack early. A girl who'd rather carry out dissections in the snowy back yard than join her family for Christmas dinner is a strange and exotic artifact in the town of Sleeping Bay.

But by her early twenties, Lottie finds herself trapped in a marriage to a high school sweetheart gone stale, with a daughter she adores but whose existence will debar her mother from the place she most longs for: the lab. How can a young woman make her way in a world determined to contain her brilliance, her will, and her longing to live?

Bravely and wisely written, Artifact is an intimate and propulsive portrait of a whole woman, a celebration of her refusal to be defined by others' imaginations, and a meditation on the glorious chaos of biological life.