Hold Still
Lynn Steger StrongA "wildly evocative" (Elle.com) family portrait that explores the depths and limits of a mother’s love.
When Maya Taylor, an English professor with a tendency to hide in her books, sends her daughter to Florida to look after a friend’s child, she does so with the best of intentions; it’s a chance for Ellie, twenty and spiralling, to rebuild her life.
But in the sprawling hours of one humid afternoon, Ellie makes a mistake she cannot take back. In two separate timelines - before and after the catastrophe - Maya and Ellie must try to repair their fractured relationship and find a way to transcend not only their differences but also their more troubling similarities.
“Hold Still is an unblinking examination of family, the mother-child bond, and the storms it must withstand. Lynn Strong pulls no punches in considering not just how deep, but also how misguided a mother’s love can be.” - Elisa Albert, author of After Birth
Melding "psychological insight, precise plotting and limpid prose" (Huffington Post), Lynn Steger Strong traces the anatomy of a mistake and the weight of culpability. Hold Still marks a taut and propulsive debut that "builds to a perfect crescendo, an ending that is both surprising and true" (Marcy Dermansky).