Title: Why the tree loves the ax
First published: 1998
Description: Caroline Harrison is a young woman drifting across the country from a secret past to an uncertain future. Stranded by accident in a small Texas city, she decides to settle down and stay, only to have her peace destroyed by a moment of inspired fury. From there she's on the run, to New York City to confront her ex-husband, and then upstate, where she lands in a small house in the woods inhabited by three men and an eight-year-old boy - a tiny criminal community. But will they help her or hurt her?

And what exactly are they scheming? This is a story of female violence, fear, and resourcefulness. It is a meditation on identity and memory.
Subjects: Fiction, Women, Violence, New York Times reviewed, Fiction, psychological
LC classification: PS3562.E9475 W48 1998