John Towey
After a hurricane reeks havoc on Sister Island, Mississippi, rescue parties find a young girl on the shore. The girl is alive and soon opens her eyes, but she is non responsive. Dorrie takes her to her mother's home and goes back to the island to look for family. Although there were only 30 people on the island, none of the survivors claim to know her. Weeks go by and while Camille begins to show signs of conscience she remains mute. Dorrie redoubles her efforts to find her family. She soon finds that she will battle the state, people she trusted and those who lived on Sister Island. It will be a long twisting road filled with heartbreak for both Camille and Dorrie.
It's 1999, and as the end of the millenium approaches, people are attempting to find spiritual enlightenment. But a few people want to skip all the work that entails, and a holy Tenktonese relic in the hands of a heretic is giving them a shortcut. But it's not quite as easily controlled as she says.
After a terrible air disaster, survivor Max Klein emerges a changed person. Unable to connect to his former life or to wife Laura, he feels godlike and invulnerable. When psychologist Bill Perlman is unable to help Max, he has Max meet another survivor, Carla Rodrigo, who is racked with grief and guilt since her baby died in the crash which she and Max survived.
Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.
