Caitlin Shetterly writes: “My sophomore novel, The Gulf of Lions, was published on May 19 and is an evocative, stand-alone sequel which follows Alice, who, recovering from the trauma of breast cancer and a mastectomy, takes a once-in-a-lifetime trip across France with her two daughters, determined to recapture her joie de vivre and to live life to the absolute fullest. This follows my debut novel, Pete and Alice in Maine. I gave my main character, Alice, cancer in her left breast, something I had meticulously researched. I handed that book in during October of 2024. In April of 2025, six months later, I found out that I had the exact same kind of cancer in the exact same breast. It felt like my wall had been broken. I was undone, honestly. The preconception of it terrified me. And I had a total crisis of both hope and faith, sort of separately, one crisis giving way to the other. The existential crises, honestly, were even more terrifying than the cancer in some ways.”
See more notes:
Class of 1997