"There was no point in telling Dorie that an education, even one in psychology, is no protection from the inherited mess with which we're let loose upon this life; that psychologists stumble and fall as hard, and with as much puzzlement, as anybody else."Growing up in rural Nova Scotia, Jen is a solitary and somewhat diabolical child who comes up with - at best - unusual ways of dealing with a life that never goes quite the way that she thinks it should. The linked stories of this collection follow Jen from childhood to middle age, jaunting through misadventures and marriages, learning all the while that while you can leave your hometown, your past still has a way of finding you.In prose rich in characterization and insight, That's Where You Were, Then explores the places we've been and the baffling absurdities we encounter along the way.

Rose is divorced, fifty, and estranged from her daughter. At a student art opening on a rainy March evening she meets Morrison, a genial hoarder and womb-twin survivor, who leads us to Abbey, a dancer who is losing the chance to become a mother, who leads us to Iris, a bright ten-year-old doing her best to handle her family breaking apart. When her daughter vanishes completely, Rose seeks out her old friend Mab, the cheerful keeper of little bad signs. Following her only clue, a postcard bearing just a signature and a photo of a pristine lake, Rose chases after her daughter and her past mistakes. A ghost on the shore of Maxhamish Lake may hold the key to the true mystery, one unknown even to Rose, buried deep in the heart. The Signs of No is a story of guilt and grief, of finding one's footing in middle life, and of discovery and reinvention. It traces the spiderweb cracks of invisible loss, common and uncommon, the losses that go without memorial or acknowledgment. It is a story about women, about motherhood, and the ways middle-aged women are underestimated, even by themselves.