Sycamore Bryn Chancellor

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of the Avid Reader. Today our guest is Bryn Chancellor author of Sycamore, her debut novel published in May by Harper. Bryn’s short story collection is When Are You Coming Home? and her short fiction has also appeared in Gulf Coast, Blackbird, The Colorado Review and other magazines and reviews.Sycamore is a novel with a piece missing. The funny thing is, that missing piece drives the force of the entire narrative. In a little town, a town some would rather not even be in, the memories, the ghost of an event that happened years before haunts many of the residents who had a relationship with the missing girl, Jess who is the absent star of this novel.What’s interesting and thought provoking is how important closure is when something like this happens. People ripple and Jess’ history and her personality ripple through the town and through the lives and shaped personalities of the people with whom she came in contact in her short relationship with them.Sycamore is scary and thought provoking and forces the reader to place himself in a hypothetical similar position. “What would I do?” resonates throughout the book.