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Heat Signature
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Part noir, part odyssey, Heat Signature mines the psychological and emotional landscape of loss as a son tries to cope with the murder of his mother.
Sam Brown sets out on a road trip from his home in a small California desert town to the cooler, greener climes of the Northwest. He tells himself he just needs a break, from his father, a dead-end relationship with a stripper, his job as a nurse, and his troubled best friend. But what he can�t escape, no matter how many miles he travels, is the memory of his mother, July, who was brutally murdered sixteen years earlier and visits him regularly in his dreams. Sam�s grief is sorely renewed when he learns July�s murderer is soon to be released from prison. Overcome by strong feelings of panic and revenge, he turns to women. He reconnects with a former patient in Los Angeles. In Santa Barbara he meets a sage/philosopher who inspires him to put order in his life. In Oregon, he falls in love with an arborist whose woodsy home provides peace and refuge�at least for a while. Simultaneous with Sam�s journey, his mother�s story unfolds, coming to a climax when the details of July�s grisly murder are revealed. Through a fast-paced, gripping narrative, Heat Signature explores the complexities of family and friendship, love and loss, race and sexuality. Lisa Teasley is the author of the award-winning story collection Glow in the Dark and a novel, Dive. She lives in Los Angeles. Sam Brown sets out on a road trip from his home in a small California desert town to the cooler, greener climes of the Northwest. He tells himself he just needs a break, from his father, a dead-end relationship with a stripper, his job as a nurse, and his troubled best friend. But what he can�t escape, no matter how many miles he travels, is the memory of his mother, July, who was brutally murdered sixteen years earlier and visits him regularly in his dreams. Sam�s grief is sorely renewed when he learns July�s murderer is soon to be released from prison. Overcome by strong feelings of panic and revenge, he turns to women. He reconnects with a former patient in Los Angeles. In Santa Barbara he meets a sage/philosopher who inspires him to put order in his life. In Oregon, he falls in love with an arborist whose woodsy home provides peace and refuge�at least for a while. Simultaneous with Sam�s journey, his mother�s story unfolds, coming to a climax when the details of July�s grisly murder are revealed. Through a fast-paced narrative, Heat Signature explores the complexities of family and friendship, love and loss, race and sexuality. 'Lisa Teasley has fashioned an extraordinary literary suspense novel: crisp, brutal and concise in tone, with engaging, wholly original characters.'�Joy Nicholson, author of The Tribes of Palos Verdes and The Road to Esmeralda
'In a prose that almost glistens on the page, Heat Signature describes parabolas of loss and recovery, both satisfying a reader�s appetite for consolation and coherence, and, curiously, whetting it anew. Teasley writes with brio, heart, and (yes) heat, too.'�Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Son of a Witch
'This ambitious, richly imagined novel tackles loss, recovery, and friendship. Sam is a young man haunted by the grisly murder of his mother many years ago. After learning that her killer has just been released on parole, he sets out on what he hopes will be a healing road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway from southern California. Throughout this journey, however, he is tormented by feelings of regret, confusion, and fear. He is saved, ultimately, by the exceptional women he meets along the way. Sam is African American, and race plays a role in the story, but Teasley's primary focus is Sam's psychological state. She convincingly depicts his agonizing emotional struggles and dramatically shifting moods. As she did in her first novel, Dive, Teasley also skillfully intertwines both romantic and violent plot elements.'�Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community College, CT, Library Journal 'Lisa Teasley . . . transcends the psychological thriller genre with sensitively drawn characters and a literary sensibility . . . [Heat Signature] is poignant, affecting and true.'�Los Angeles Times 'His mother's savage rape and murder when Sam Brown was only 15 continues to haunt him still�literally. A vagabond spirit in life, July evinces the same kind of influence in death, appearing to Sam in his dreams and during times of extreme stress. And stress abounds in Sam's life. When volatile relationships with his stepfather, his best friend, and his lover merge with the release from prison of July's killer, Sam takes to the road, seeking escape as well as answers for the senseless act that changed his life. Traveling from his southern California desert home to the lush Oregon coast, Sam latches on to one woman after another, looking for the one person who can fill the profound gap created by his mother's death. Weaving July's past with Sam's present, Teasley deftly guides their mutual tragedy of ultimate loss and unfulfilled promises to an emotionally fraught climax, guilelessly delineating her characters' suffering through unadorned, unapologetic candor and a simplistic fervor for redemption and justice.'�Carol Haggas, Booklist 'Teasley transcends the mystery and thriller genres with her moody second novel populated by unusual but recognizable people living on the left coast of America�each wounded in his or her own way. The son of an African-American woman and a Native American man, 31-year-old Sam Brown is haunted by memories of his mother, July, who was raped and murdered when he was a teenager. Sam lives with his gruff, eccentric but loving stepfather, pipe fitter Joe Braxton, in the California desert community of Twentynine Palms, where Sam works as a nurse at the vast military base that dominates the area. Learning that July's killer is about to be released from prison in San Diego, Sam sets off on a road trip up the Pacific coast, seeking solace and pleasure from a series of short-lived affairs with women, including a former patient in Los Angeles, a near-saint in Santa Barbara and a tree expert in Oregon. Teasley interrupts Sam's odyssey with flashbacks to the sad details of July's death, giving her novel a dark, effective frame.'�Publishers Weekly
Gift from Dede Oetomo.
Lisa Teasley - Personal Name
F TEA Hea
1596911018
USA
Book - Paperback
Bloomsbury
2006
281
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