Revisionist History is a novel about families, their unique traumas, and finding redemption in the most unlikely of places. Rachel Crane has all of the ingredients for a beautiful life: family wealth, loving parents with strong values, and a close relationship with her younger sister, Isabel. After a devastating event leaves Isabel handicapped and her family in tumult, Rachel is unable to cope with her guilt over her part in the tragedy. As a means of atonement, against all reason (and her parents’ wishes), Rachel adopts Isabel’s life-plan as her own. Fleeing to Chicago to begin a new life, she grudgingly develops a pseudo patient/therapist relationship with her intrepid neighbor Suzy Reynolds, who is at her own crisis point. Every facet of Suzy’s life is falling apart as she struggles to maintain the destructive devil-may-care facade she’s been hiding behind since fleeing an abusive family life. As both women spiral downward, they learn through their odd pairing that acceptance and recovery come only through facing and processing their individual traumas.

Revisionist History is 58,500 words. The first chapter was published in Write City Magazine as the second place winner of Chicago Writers Association Best First Chapter Contest.