Submitted by watchungbooksellers on Thu, 08/19/2010 - 7:50pm
09/23/2010 7:00 pm
09/23/2010 8:00 pm
Gwen Raine is a woman readers will instantly recognize: an
attractive, thirtyish stay-at-home mom who lives in the kind of tranquil
suburban community where the wives spend their days ferrying the kids
to and from school and music lessons and nature camps and where the
husbands work long, grueling hours at stressful white-collar jobs in
order to maintain the upscale standard of living to which the whole
family has become all-too-accustomed. It’s a milieu in which everything
seems to be right—yet so much can go wrong.
And it does—starting with a seemingly minor decision that turns
Gwen’s perfect life upside down. It’s a typical Friday morning in late
summer and Gwen is anticipating a long-awaited weekend away at the lake
with her overworked husband, Brian, and their two small children. After
dropping her daughter off at swim class, Gwen drives across town to
purchase a small bag of marijuana from an old flame. She’s counting on
the pot to help her unwind later that night in those precious private
moments with Brian after the kids are asleep. Then, on the way home,
Gwen gets into a car accident—an accident that leaves her bruised and
somewhat battered but leaves the other driver (an elderly man who
crossed over into her lane) dead. The local police know the accident
isn’t her fault, but when they find the marijuana in Gwen’s car, they
throw the book at her. There have been problems with drugs in the
schools and they want to crack down on abusers, whoever and wherever
they are. Before long, Gwen is in legal hot water—and the temperature
keeps rising. Finally, under pressure from the police, her attorney, and
her own husband, she reveals her source’s name.
Meanwhile, Brian is embroiled in a moral and legal dilemma of his
own when the big pharmaceutical company he works for markets an
anti-anxiety drug for "off-label" use as a weight-loss aid, only to
discover that it can have deadly consequences. And Gwen’s former lover
Jude, a local restaurateur and the supplier of the stash of the title,
has gotten in way over his head with his little side business.
Told from multiple perspectives and revolving around a diverse set
of vividly imagined characters, this rich, ambitious, and deeply
satisfying novel takes a mordant look at our society’s ambivalent and
often hypocritical attitude toward all manner of mood-altering
substances, legal and illegal. Paced by psychological suspense and an
ever-thickening plot, Stash ultimately is about the moral
complications that arise when a modern woman’s fierce determination to
do the right thing collides head-on with human fallibility and desire.
David Klein is a native of upstate New York whose short fiction
has appeared in a variety of literary magazines. He owns and operates a
marketing communications firm in Delmar, New York, where he lives with
his wife and two children. Klein is at work on a second novel.