Publisher's Synopsis
The Language of Sharks is about girls eager to discard their innocence, and women yearning to regain it. Set in Florida?s land of bare feet, rain puddles, sandspurs, palmettos, giant multicolored grasshoppers and alarmingly pink azaleas, these stories take place where garish development rises temporarily out of the primordial swamps. Whether the characters are looking for burrow owls in the Panhandle marshes, or feeding sharks in the Gulf of Mexico, their sorrows, deceptions and hopes are intertwined with a landscape that is part strip mall, part paradise. A college girl named Jenny admits she is in an abusive relationship, and acknowledges her own complicity. A career woman looks back on her dubious past, and her confession to a prospective lover leaves no doubt about her guilt. From the Miami hooker to the suburban housewife, all the protagonists search for meaning in their troubled lives. Redemption may be a long shot, but it?s still a possibility. At times humorous, other times heart-wrenching, these stories document the ways in which we survive, often in spite of ourselves.
