Abigial Stewart's novel Foundations released on March 10th.
Go and grab yourself a copy!
A steely-eyed, feminist,
multi-generational novel, Foundations is told in three parts
following the lives of three women all living in the same Dallas house in
different eras, whose experiences parallel the history of women's rights
struggles in the American south.
The drink I chose to represent Foundations is an extra
dry vodka martini with a twist. It encapsulates the effortlessly chic food and
drink pairings of Bunny, the Hollywood glamour of Jessica, and it pairs well
with fermented food, which I think Amanda would appreciate, or perhaps
not.
Excerpt
That night, her husband made a rare appearance at home, expecting dinner. Bunny hadn’t gone shopping, so she cooked a large sirloin steak that she’d stashed in the freezer and two baked potatoes with sour cream.
“Don’t you want a steak?”
“Oh, no. I’m not hungry.”
Her husband nodded in an approving manner, he liked that his wife kept trim. Bunny watched her husband eat bite after bite of the medium rare meat until he placed his hands on his stomach and leaned back, his baser urges satisfied.
She poured them both another glass of wine. He smiled at her almost beatifically, like she embodied every angel in the heavens.
“May I see your palm?”
He held out his large hand unquestionably, taking a gulp of wine as he did so.
His palm held none of the delicate whorls her sister Rose's possessed. It was thick and meaty, deeply lined like the dog-eared corner of a book. Her eyes went directly to his sun line, a broad crease that indicated burnout, a failure perhaps in his career. She looked away. Upon seeing his lifeline, which was so broken it resembled Morse code, Bunny panicked and instead brought his hand to her cheek, then her breast. Her heart thudded against the cage of her chest not from desire, but from knowing too much.
He mistook her trembling limbs for a demure ardor and led her to the bedroom where Bunny fell into the bed like a stone and he sweated over her, smelling of meat. He almost overslept the next morning and chided her gently on his way out the door.
Bunny resolved to return her palmistry book to the library that morning.
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Blurbs
"I devoured the hell out of this wonderful novel about
three different women in the same house across the decades, dealing with
unhappiness and doubt in their own, often wild ways. I loved the careful,
compassionate way Stewart crafted these characters - it drew me in completely
to their stories."
— Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You
"Was loneliness an emergency?" Abigail Stewart asks in this novel,
rich in atmosphere and detail... As Stewart explores repetitions and
recurrences over time, you keenly care about these characters who are linked by
one particular house that may or may not be able to contain their desires and
their dreams." — Deborah Shapiro, author of Consolation
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Abigail Stewart is a fiction
writer from Berkeley, California. She is the author of two novels, The
Drowned Woman and Foundations, as well as a short story collection, Assemblage.
You can find her at helloabigailstewart.com
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