The River Road
New Rivers Press, 2008

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Now also available in:
Audiobook CD
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- 2009 Nashville Book Festival Awards -
Honorable Mention for Fiction

This novel in stories follows an Iowa farm girl's maturity to womanhood as she is raised by her father after her mother's desertion. Brigid O'Conner grows up to the sounds of rock and roll and distant voices as her father grows into understanding both Brigid and himself.

"...a tender, unsentimental coming-of-age tale...how right Currans-Sheehan gets everything, everytime....an authentic and moving story—it's the real deal."
–Jenna Blum, author of Those Who Save Us

"...An amazing journey, full of passion, childhood imagination and longings, and unique characters. A magical world, which reminds me painfully how America has fallen from grace."
–Josip Novakovich, author of Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust

"...a lovingly detailed, compassionate look at lives that rise and fall with the erratic heartbeat of realtionship in a rural community.... [Currans-Sheehan] cares deepy about place and about the lives shaped by it. This is a voice worth listening to,..."
–Jonis Agee, author of The River Wife

The Egg Lady and The Other Neighbors
New Rivers Press, 2004

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Winner of the Headwaters Literary Competition*

*The Headwaters Literary Competition, which was an annual competition for new and emerging writers living in the United States, has been bundled into the Many Voices Project.

"A poignant, truth-telling collection about what it means to grow up female in the rural Midwest where gender elevates or dooms a person. Readers will cheer for these ingenious women who survive hard lessons and exact revenge with a glee and courage that makes them irresistible!"
–Jonis Agee, author of Acts of Love on Indigo Road

"Currans-Sheehan writes of Iowa family life with such clarity and insight that we feel as if we live among her beloved, vanishing characters in small towns and on nearby farms. Like Jim Heynen, her only peer in these matters, she is capable of transforming the ordinary Iowa countryside into magical parables filled with moments of pain and beauty." Josip Novakovich (Salvation and Other Disasters) writes. As Lisa Sandlin, author of In the River Province, writes: "What makes these stories so much fun to read, and so rewardingly subversive, are characters who refuse to back down—and who stand ready to accept the consequences."

These women "challenge a parent's cold-heartedness, revenge themselves on hypocritical neighbors, announce prison records, infiltrate the Knights of Columbus. They are so much fun to read," Lisa Sandlin writes, "because they refuse to back down-and stand ready to accept the consequences."

"Tricia Currans-Sheehan has succeeded in illuminating the truth of a rural childhood....It is a first collection worth reading and the harbinger of a new author worth watching."
–Dan O'Brien, author of Buffalo for the Broken Heart