Before October Wakes

Summer in Michigan is supposed to be bright.

Fireworks explode over Lake Huron, Fireflies gather in island meadows. Families spread picnic blankets beneath old trees. Tourists arrive by ferry, fisherman wade into cold rivers, and the long days seem to promise that darkness is still a long way off.

But darkness has never needed an invitation.

In these thirteen stories, Kathryn Seelye takes us into the places where ordinary Michigan summers conceal extraordinary secrets. A body pulled from a river leads a boy to question the man his town has trusted for decades. A woman disappears during an island tradition that everyone has always believed was harmless. A family picnic reveals a secret carried for generations. A flooded quarry refuses to give up what it has been keeping. And in the final days before autumn arrives, the things buried beneath familiar lives begin to surface.

Set against the lakes, forests, orchards, small towns, and back roads of Michigan, Before October Wakes explores the shadows cast by memory, silence, grief, violence and the stories people tell themselves when the truth is harder to hear.

Because summer may be the season of light. But even the brightest days cast a shadow.