In This Issue

There's an undeniable allure to nonfiction that situates a riveting true story within a pulsating sense of place. Sisters of the Midnight Sun by Rebecca Wright Stevens, for one, depicts the "unwavering beauty" of the Alaskan summer as the setting for "a crime as chilling as the permafrost." The defense attorney's atmospheric, expertly crafted memoir details a tense double-murder trial and its complex impact on the local community during a season when the sun never sets. Similarly, American Alt by Chris Lockhart gambols about the forests, mountains, and streams of Washington State as he helps an old friend piece together shadowy memories, scrambled as they are by schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. A sobering case study of mental illness as well as an astonishing portrait of enduring friendship, it's a literary gem that made me want to stand up and applaud when I finished.