Hurricane Girl

Allison Brody is thirty-two and has just reached the East Coast, having escaped her boyfriend, a movie producer. Years of writing and waitressing left her with some savings, and she spends them on a small beach house. Then a Category 3 hurricane makes landfall and scatters the house along the shore.

With her home gone, Allison drifts. She goes home from a bar with a cameraman she barely knows, planning to stay in his guest room. A glass vase is smashed on her skull, and she is left with blood in her eyes and a decision about whether she can get into her car and drive to her mother's.

A brain surgeon who treats her becomes part of her life, and she is unsure whether she loves him or simply wants the use of his swimming pool. Beneath that sits a harder question: whether anyone can heal without seeking some revenge.

This is a literary novel that moves between dark comedy and horror, with violence and sex treated frankly. The pace is quick and the mood unsettled, close to dreamlike at times, and the humor keeps surfacing in the middle of the danger. Swimming and a good turkey sandwich are among the small pleasures Allison holds onto. The author also wrote Very Nice.