New Books In Literature

Today I talked to Sandra Cavallo Miller about her novel Where No One Should Live (U Nevada Press, 2021). Dr. Maya Summer works at Arizona Public Health, overseeing and researching a myriad of public health issues. A passionate advocate for a motorcycle helmet law, she also monitors disease-bearing mosquitoes, rabid bobcats, and the opioid epidemic--along with many other concerns. To maintain her clinical skills, she spends time at the nearby family medicine residency, seeing patients and teaching new physicians. Maya also navigates a complicated personal life: a somewhat troubled romantic relationship with a cardiologist; a retired physician-friend searching for new meaning; an undocumented neighbor raising a young son; and a cherished ailing old horse. A new danger looms when she sparks the anger of local biker gangs who want to stop her helmet campaign. As the intimidating warnings reach an unsettling highpoint, a past trauma that had been fueling her work now starts to haunt her--threatening to derail her