Rachel DeWoskin

In Banshee, Samantha Baxter-wife, mother, poetry professor-learns she has breast cancer and then ruins her own life. Tumbling through a catastrophic midlife crisis, she gives herself permission to partake in behaviors she's observed in her male colleagues, including having an affair with a student her daughter's age, ranting at board meetings, and telling her poetry students what she really thinks of their work. Underneath biting, witty narration...

Lillia, her younger sister Naomi, , and their father fled Warsaw in 1940. Shanghai was one of the few places that would accept Jews without visas. She worries about how their mother, Alenka, would find them. Lillia finds an outlet for her artistic talent by making puppets, remembering the happy days in Warsaw when they were circus performers. She makes friends with Wei, a Chinese boy, and finds work as a performer at a "gentlemen's club" without her...