“Separate lives, touched by tragedy, sustained by love, connected by the still waters of Consecration Pond. Eleven individual stories, skillfully interwoven, beautifully told. When I finished the final story and put the book aside, the characters lived on in my memory as vivid and fresh as when we’d first met. And so, I returned to the first, to again share the lives of the people who inhabit the shores of Consecration Pond.”
—John Bragg, award-winning author of The Broom of God and Exit 8
Consecration Pond
by Laura Bonazzoli
On the shores of Consecration Pond, a burn victim begs her husband’s ghost for forgiveness for failing to save him, a retired teacher counsels a reporter seeking easy answers to the cause of his neighbor’s death, and a boy’s self-imposed rite of passage nearly costs him his life. The eleven linked short stories in Laura Bonazzoli’s collection take place by the same pond in rural Maine. Together, they offer a meditation on the nature of wisdom, the risks and gifts of allowing ourselves to be seen, and the challenge of creating meaning in the wake of loss.
“Every reader will find moments to embrace in these eleven linked stories about lives that center around a Maine pond. More than a body of water, the pond is a member of the community, a timeless presence that rescues, restores and releases.”
—Elizabeth G. Macalaster, author of War Pigeons: Winged Couriers in the U.S. Military, 1878-1957
Laura Bonazzoli’s short stories, personal essays, and poetry have appeared in dozens of literary magazines and several anthologies. She lives in an old schoolhouse on the coast of Maine. Consecration Pond is her first book.
{author photo: Amy Wilton}
“With candor and sensitivity, these luminous stories trace the highs and lows of the residents from Consecration Pond, people of the stars, the loons, and the changing seasons. Conversations with the dying and the dead, the non-human, and the not-present haunt these pages. All the while, the heavens drape comfort across the shoulders of the forlorn. Take this book to a lakeside cottage and savor it by lamplight well into the night.”
—Jodi Paloni, They Could Live With Themselves
Interested in hosting Laura for a reading of her work, or interviewing her about her writing?