The Topography of Hidden Stories

The characters in Julia MacDonnell’s first collection, The Topography of Hidden Stories, grapple with doubt and disquiet in their search for love and connection, for their own place in the world, and create a shining tapestry of women’s lives in the late 20th and the early 21st centuries. Several feature women trapped in a pious patriarchy that has yet to loosen its control of women’s lives, especially their creative power and fertility. However difficult their situations, these characters confront experience with sharp eyes, ironic wit, and a potent sense of their own historical matrix. Through prose that glistening with imagery and figurative language, they express a progressive consciousness and a honed feminist edge.


Genre: Literary Fiction

"With vivid detail and exact cultural references... these stories take us to a moment and keep us wholly there The collection centers on female protagonists who are forced to break free at an early age from their New England Irish Catholic families. The stories in this collection linger in the subconscious. They are stories that stop but [do] not end." - Nathan Alling Long