WHAT SHE KEPT

Deanne Cross endured a hard childhood in an unhappy Appalachian home, but she doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. As her life unfolds from rural Alabama to working class Chicago, she is determined to create a different kind of life for herself, her family, her husband, and her children. Through early loss to middle-aged stability, she refuses to acknowledge the price of self-will. Deanne is a woman displaced, flawed and difficult, deeply connected to her past even as she tries to ignore it.