Sugar Lake
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Chambers, Lorne Marc
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As a young boy, Liam is obsessed with a mounted sailfish that hangs above the fireplace at “The Cottage,” his family’s modest vacation home on Sugar Lake, a tiny body of water in Northwest Pennsylvania. Caught by his enigmatic Uncle Jack, who died long before Liam was born, the sailfish reappears in his life more than three decades later through the most unlikely of circumstances, involving a heist, a flood, and an improbable cross-country road trip. Now middle-aged and married, the fish’s return comes at a complicated moment in Liam’s life. As he’s dealing with his mother’s chronic illness and ultimate death, the fish serves as a portal to the past for both mother and son. In her final months, the fish’s physical presence allows them to relive happy days together at Sugar Lake, a place that was uniquely special to the two of them. But, while the fish offers fond memories for Liam, it also becomes a ghost, haunting him as he struggles to let go of the past. It ultimately poses more questions than answers. How and why did the fish come back into his life? What happened to “The Cottage?” Who was Uncle Jack? Are these memories real or are they just fish tales?