The Deepest Lake

Rose, the mother of twentysomething aspiring writer Jules, has waited three months for answers about her daughter’s death. Why was she swimming alone when she feared the water? Why did she stop texting days before she was last seen? When the official investigation rules the death an accidental drowning, the body possibly lost forever in Central America’s deepest lake, an unsatisfied Rose travels to the memoir workshop herself. She hopes to draw her own conclusion—and find closure. When Rose arrives, she is swept into the curious world created by her daughter’s literary hero, the famous writing teacher Eva Marshall, a charismatic woman known for her candid—and controversial—memoirs. As Rose uncovers details about the days leading up to Jules’s disappearance, she begins to suspect that this glamorous retreat package is hiding ugly truths. Is Lake Atitlán a place where traumatized women come to heal or a place where deeper injury is inflicted? The Deepest Lake is both a sharp look at the sometimes toxic, exclusionary world of high-class writing workshops and an achingly poignant view of a mother’s grief. “Welcome to the memoir workshop from hell. I relished this insider’s look … The Deepest Lake is a gripping yet thoughtful novel about overcoming trauma, meeting our inheritance, and what happens when we seize the power to rewrite our own stories.”—Alison B. Hart, author of The Work Wife