The Shape Of Staying

Life did not begin with hope. It began with silence.

As a child, Ivy learned to survive by leaving herself behind. When the world became unbearable, another presence stepped forward, calm, precise, and willing to carry what she could not. The world called it survival. She called her Eva.

Years after the fire that both destroyed and revealed everything, Ivy is still living in pieces: one self for the world, one self for the war she survived. Until a quiet man on a train, an unfinished apartment, and the unexpected arrival of a daughter force her to confront the life she's spent trying not to live.

The Shape of Staying is a lyrical psychological novel about trauma, dissociation, motherhood, and the courage it takes to remain present after a lifetime of surviving by disappearing.

Raw, intimate, and quietly hopeful, it explores the fragile space between who we become to survive and who we are when it is finally safe to stay.

Not the courage to run. The courage to stay.