Two Canoes Press

Sunday January 18, 2009, 6:26 AM

In "The Unraveling Thread" (Two Canoe Press, 251 pages, $26.95) Priscilla Cogan weaves the complex, problem-laden stories of the McWhinnie family into a beautiful, compelling novel.

Harriet McWhinnie's career was sailing, with a new position that carried a six-figure salary. Yet at home, things were falling apart.

Coming home to announce the good news, Harriet finds Opal, her intelligent and independent mother, naked and holding the hand of her 5-year-old son, Justin. Opal is losing a battle against dementia.

Upstairs, Luna and Sola, Harriet's twin daughters, are yelling at each other. Luna is your average self-centered teenager, but Sola suffers from an array of physical and mental disabilities that no one can correctly diagnose, let alone cure.

There is also Digger, the family's Shetland sheepdog, which is uncontrollable. Amid all of this, the last caregiver quit unexpectedly.

Harriet, desperate to find someone new before her job begins, hires an American Indian woman, Agatha Stands. Agatha is mysterious, comes with no references and wants to be paid cash. But she is ready to begin work immediately.

Although in "The Unraveling Thread" the characters deal with problems that at times seem insurmountable, the book is very easy to read. The characters are at once interesting and relatable, and the book is peppered with humor. As Cogan said, "If you don't laugh, life might get much too heavy."

Cogan, who lives in Massachusetts in the winter and on the Leelanau Peninsula in the summer, said she wanted to write a book about women caught in the "sandwich generation."

"Women are caught between taking care of parents, and taking care of children," Cogan said.

But her No. 1 reason to write about the McWhinnie family was because Velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS), the disease that we learn plagues Sola, has never been depicted in fiction. The syndrome varies but often involves a cleft palate, heart defects and learning problems.

"I wanted to educate the public about it," Cogan said.

Cogan's history with VCFS is personal; her 43-year-old niece was diagnosed with it when she was 32.

Through the novel, and thanks to Agatha's strength, the characters grow and become stronger. Although not all problems have solutions, the characters learn to accept what they can't change and grow to love each other more as a family.

This is Cogan's fifth novel. Her first novel, "Winona's Web," won the Small Press Book Award.

E-mail the author of this story: yourlife@grpress.com.

Priscilla Cogan’s new novel Double Time will keep you up all night reading. Once you join Billy T. Pickle’s escape from a bank holdup he carries out to keep his wife Carmelite in shopping money so she won’t kick him out, you won’t want to leave him. Billy kidnaps a scruffy teenage girl after the robbery - who doesn’t mind because she was running away from home anyway - and discovers the tires of his getaway car (Carmelita’s) have been slashed. Within the sound of sirens Billy jumps into a powder blue Dodge Dart named Matilda being driven very slowly by an old lady. He shoves the teenager in front and holds a gun to their heads while ordering the old lady to head out of town. Thus this unlikely trio begin a zig-zag cross-country escapade filled with funny, witty and provocative conversation. As if each wild and exciting experience on the road is not enough, the teenager reads aloud from a novel belonging to the old lady to relieve boredom on the road. But beware. The journey isn’t just a wild adventure. In the end you will, as Cogan warns, wonder “what is real and what is fiction? Can a novel change the story of your life”

–Evelyn Wolfson, author of A First Look At History: Native Americans, Growing Up Indian, From Abenaki to Zuni: A Dictionary of Native American Tribes, Hot Flashes from Abroad: Women Travel Tales and Adventures

Contrasting the values of modern Western culture with Native American beliefs, Cogan's well-told first novel pits a Michigan psychotherapist against an elderly Lakota woman who seemingly chooses death over life. Winona Pathfinder, a healthy 69-year-old medicine woman, walks into the office of narrator Megan O'Connor after being referred by her daughter, to whom Winona has revealed that she intends to die in two months. At first, Megan uses standard therapy tactics to try to shake Winona's preoccupation with death. When that fails, Megan begins to listen to her story; soon she becomes a pupil, as Winona imparts the Lakota way of life. As the sessions go on, the two women become friends, and the divorced therapist begins to see how her own loneliness is caused by what Winona sees as a lack of balance. The conceit may be clichéd, but Cogan has a talent for characterization and weaves together the strengths and weaknesses of the two women with grace and flair. The author, a psychotherapist with a background in Native American ceremonies, earns bonus points for presenting the cultural material without proselytizing. More problematic are the sections dealing with Megan's friendships and infrequent romantic adventures, many of them mawkish. Though they represent a significant flaw, they seldom get in the way of a story that's full of understanding and compassion.

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Priscilla Cogan explores 'sandwich generation,' rare disorder in 'Unraveling Thread'

by Yirssi Bergman | The Grand Rapids Press