Lonely Specks The hedonistic '70s, Topanga Canyon-- Dufy Loche-the beautiful 18 year old daughter of bohemian, neglectful parents-- escapes her fractured family to the East Coast to pursue her dream of becoming a modern dancer. She meets an older man named Bruce whose break with reality leaves her riddled with grief... After her marriage to Marcus turns sour 25 years later, Dufy, now a successful nurse-midwife and mother of two living in Portland, Maine, meets Alan Harp, a mentally ill, homeless painter. But when she leaves her family for him, she almost gets herself killed and has to escape. Faced with a variety of life-changing decisions, she is forced to grapple with her need to rescue. Years of stuffed anguish and despair, which she'd buried "under layers of old hurts" erupt and she is forced to ponder the trajectory of her life and how to claim what's left. Facing down her mess feels unfathomable, but she decides she must. In Lonely Specks, Shellie Leger gives us a novel in lean and precise language replete with humor layered over deep sadness, blunt honesty, and blunt accounts of sex. There's a steady focus on questions of grave importance-when is love good and when is love bad? What does it mean to be crazy? What does it mean to be happy? Lonely Specks is a novel of engrossing vigor on the nature of redemption and longing.
