Agnes

At its core a tale of love and conspiracy, this debut work by Maddox, set in the Poconos, is a literary amble through the family history of Sandy Parker, a lesbian whose secret life is destroyed and remade in the flood that changes the lives of her and the people she loves. Sandy%E2%80%99s grandmother%E2%80%99s obituary sets off this intriguing tale of family secrets and the aftermath of disaster. It takes patience to wade through the meandering fragments of family history and irrelevant background detailof the characters%E2%80%99 thoughts and actions that frame these frequent detours. Like listening to an elderly relative who gets caught up in the minutiae of a remembrance, the tale may be worth hearing, but only if you have the patience or the taste for drawn-out tales of the days of yore and how they seep into the present. (Feb.)