The Sound of Holding Your Breath

Stories

Natalie Sypolt

The residents of The Sound of Holding Your Breath could be neighbors, sharing the same familiar landscapes of twenty-first-century Appalachia—lake and forest, bridge and church, cemetery and garden, diner and hair salon. They could be your neighbors—average, workaday, each struggling with secrets and losses, entrenched in navigating the complex requirements of family in all its forms.

Yet tragedy and violence challenge these unassuming lives: A teenage boy is drawn to his sister's husband, an EMT searching the lake for a body. A brother, a family, and a community fail to confront the implications of a missing girl. A pregnant widow spends Thanksgiving with her deceased husband's family. Siblings grapple with the death of their sister-in-law at the hands of their brother. And in the title story, the shame of rape ruptures more than a decade later.

Accidents and deaths, cons and cover-ups, abuse and returning veterans—Natalie Sypolt's characters wrestle with who they are during the most trying situations of their lives.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Diving
• Flaming Jesus
• Ghosts
• Get Up, June
• At the Lake
• Home Visit
• Handlers
• Love, Off to the Side
• Wanting Baby
• Lettuce
• My Brothers and Me
• What Would Be Saved
• The Sound of Holding Your Breath
• Stalking the White Deer
• Acknowledgments
• Reading and Discussion Questions