Works by
Faith Sullivan
(Writer)

Books

• Gardenias (2006)
  A month after the United States enters World War II, the country is in upheaval — and so is the Erhardt family. Nine-year-old Lark, her mother Arlene, and Aunt Betty are heading for San Diego, far away from Harvester, Minnesota and Arlene’s shiftless husband. In the booming wartime economy, Arlene and Betty are soon at work, leaving Lark alone to explore their new neighborhood, a wartime housing project full of others with similarly uprooted lives. Away from prying eyes and small town expectations, the two women begin to forge new lives and new dreams — dreams that Lark isn’t always comfortable with. This richly detailed novel, told through Lark’s observant eyes, reflects the era’s tumultuous events in the everyday dramas of its memorable, finely nuanced characters.

• What a Woman Must Do (2000)
  Ten years ago, Bess Canby's parents died in a suspicious car accident.  Since then Bess has lived with her Aunt Kate and Cousin Harriet -- a makeshift family that seemed as solid as any in town.  Now, in the space of three days, each woman must decide how much she owes to the past and how much to the future.
  
  Bess, who is leaving for college in the fall, finds herself involved with a married man. Middle-aged Harriet is comfortable with her spinster's life until a widowed farmer comes courting. And Kate, deeply saddened by the death of her husband and the loss of their farm years before, dispenses acerbic advice to her younger cousins, while secretly battling the ghosts who live at the heart of all their lives.

• Mrs. Demming and the Mythical Beast (1988)
  Larissa is approaching 50, her children are grown and marrying, her preoccupied husband, Bart, is engrossed in writing a book that threatens to take over his life. For her part, Larissa paints, reads, muses, rows across the river near their Minnesota cottage and picnics on the shore, murder mystery in hand. Until, one day, she looks into the woods and sees a pair of eyes staring back at her. They are the eyes of Pan, an ageless Greek satyr who has been living there since a lovesick Victorian lady brought him to America. Larissa and her Beast discover many affinities, including the satisfaction of sexual passion. Meanwhile, however, Larissa's domestic life becomes chaotic: a daughter turns hostile; Larissa's elusive father shows up; a grandchild is born; a love affair with an old friend seems inevitable; a developer threatens the family's bucolic serenity. Escaping to Greece with her satyr, Larissa confronts the beast within and returns to take up life's real dramas.

• The Empress of One (1996) -- Winner Milkweed National Fiction Prize
  An evocative, deeply revealing novel of small-town life and childhood.

• The Cape Ann (1988)
  Lark Erhardt, the six-year-old narrator of The Cape Ann, and her fiercely independent mother dream of owning their own house; they have their hearts set on the Cape Ann, chosen from a house catalog. But when Lark's father's gambling threatens the down payment her mother has worked so hard to save, Lark's mother takes matters into her own indomitable hands. A disarmingly involving portrait of a family struggling to stay together through the Great Depression, The Cape Ann is an unforgettable story of life from a child's- eye view.

• Watchdog (1982)

• Repent Lanny Merkel (1981)