Do we truly know the ones we love or do we invent them, turning them into fictions, projections of our own desires? When a chance car accident sends author Bryn Redding into a deep coma, a whole luminous life is eclipsed, plunged into a state of darkness. The only glimmers that remain appear through the perceptions of those who love her, but contradictions between these views render them suspect. These images of Bryn conflict acutely for Djuna, Bryn's lover of four years, and Vera, Bryn's mother. Gathered at her hospital bedside, each stakes a claim to Bryn's identity, her past and future. Who is Bryn Redding? Is she the difficult, angry girl her mother remembers, or the vibrant iconoclast her lover adores? To Vera, it seems the child she once thought she knew has grown into a stranger, someone she can scarcely recognize. For Djuna, the possibility of loss moves her to cling even more ferociously to her idealized vision of Bryn. As friends from the present and past-the community Bryn has built to supplant her family of origin-gather at her side, a many-faceted picture emerges of a woman whose inner life is a mystery. When one of these friends presents Vera with copies of Bryn's published works, Vera comes to understand that her memories of the past contrast irreconcilably with her daughter's. Bryn's tough, spare writing provides yet another picture of Bryn Redding, the manufactured layers of personae and the history that lurks beneath, all the while cautioning the reader that fiction is never a reliable mirror of reality. As Bryn hovers between life and death, the antagonism between Vera and Djuna ebbs, each coming to recognize that the Bryn of their imaginations will never be restored to them, and that her recovery, if achieved at all, will yield further mysteries. BAILEY'S BEADS is a beautifully written, perceptive and sexy novel that explores the very nature of identity and the possibility of ever really knowing another person.
About the Author: Terry Wolverton is author of ten books: WOUNDED WORLD: LYRIC ESSAYS ABOUT OUR SPIRITUAL DISQUIET; EMBERS, a novel-in-poems; INSURGENT MUSE: LIFE AND ART AT THE WOMAN'S BUILDING, a memoir; STEALING ANGEL, THE LABRYS REUNION and BAILEY'S BEADS, novels; BREATH AND OTHER STORIES, a collection of short fiction, and three collections of poetry: BLACK SLIP, MYSTERY BRUISE and SHADOW AND PRAISE She has also edited fourteen literary anthologies, including (with Robert Drake) the award winning six-volume series, HIS: BRILLIANT NEW FICTION BY GAY MEN and HERS: BRILLIANT NEW FICTION BY LESBIANS. She spent 13 years at the Woman's Building as an artist, student, teacher and administrator, eventually serving as Executive Director. She is the founder of Writers At Work, a creative writing center in Los Angeles, where she teaches fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also an Associate Faculty Mentor in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Among her performing arts projects, she is working with composer David Ornette Cherry to adapt Embers as a jazz opera. Visit her website at www.terrywolverton.com.