The Middle of Somewhere

Lucy can’t hold the secret any longer. Twenty-six years ago, her sister did the unthinkable. 

Portland, Oregon, 1989: Lucy Mustin, living somewhat happily, pumping out wedding cakes for starry-eyed heterosexuals while she, a lesbian, can’t legally marry, is called upon to travel to Santa Cruz to help her autistic sister, Alice, care for their Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother. She knew the call was coming sooner or later. She’d just hoped it would be later. Mother issues. The possibility that resolution might be lost to dementia is a heartbreak she doesn’t feel like feeling. 

Santa Cruz, California, one week later: a trip to the family bakery ups the ante tenfold when the Loma Prieta/World Series Earthquake, racking up a whopping 7.1 on the Richter scale, traps the sisters below ground. There, Alice reminds Lucy of a promise made to their mother many years ago, a promise she plans to keep.

Baby boomer Morgan Ronzio's troubled marriage is the least of her worries when she gets the call that her addled, eighty-six-year-old, half-blind dad, Mac, has stolen a car and escaped the rest home.

Before she can alert her uber-capable wife, Treat, a trio of lady octogenarians appropriates the rest home van to rescue Mac, embarking on an adventure that makes national news. But Morgan knows something they don't: Mac is taking orders from her mom's ghost, trying to make good on a promise he made years ago. Worried sick, Morgan sets out on the 126-mile drive from Fresno to Santa Cruz, praying she finds Mac before he hurts himselfor worse. The chase is on, but the mission becomes one of more than miles; Morgan must also undertake a journey of the heart.

Freshly out of college and possibly in love, Brianna Bell, aka Bean, worries that she'll never be able to have a normal relationship due to her screwy upbringing. Her parents form a perfect triangle: Mom, Dad, and her mother's lover—who also happens to be her Dad's twin sister. The animosity between the twins is a valley of landmines. When her mom, Maye, is threatened with a rare and possibly fatal illness, she begs Bean to help heal the rift between brother and sister. Reluctantly, Bean tries. But the more Bean finds out about her parents' complicated history, the more she realizes how little she knows.

Zeddi's cursed with bad luck. A housing shortage in the Bay Area’s Tres Ojos has left Zeddi and her nine-year-old daughter, Olive, living in a van. Working as a housekeeper, trying to save money, Zeddi worries about Olive’s welfare. When she finds her friend and housekeeping client Mags dead—and something about her death doesn’t sit right—she faces her biggest worry of all.

Mags’s longtime lover, Ida, confirms her suspicions of foul play, revealing that Mags served as high priestess to a dwindling coven of old witches—who are positive that Mags was murdered. Zeddi owes it to Mags and Ida to uncover the truth, but the more she digs, the more she fears that Mags’s love for Olive may have unintentionally made Olive the killer’s next target.

Getting born is trickier than Spanky ever imagined.

Yearning for life, Spanky chooses Nina, a flighty actress just out of college, and Rick, a sax player who changes tires to get by, to be his parents. Only Nina seems to be hung up on her gay guy friend Pablo, and Nina's best girlfriend Dink is hung up on her! Will Nina and Rick get it together in time to conceive Spanky before he evaporates? And if this hurdle gets crossed, will they choose to keep him?

There's not much Spanky can do but watch from above while his fate plays out—and if that's not scary enough, an unexpected twist of fate makes Spanky have to completely reevaluate his expectations. He's a girl!

A poignant, hilarious, unforgettable look at life, love, gender, and the essence of what makes us who we are.

Thomas Simmons nearly died when a rocket-propelled grenade threw him ass over teakettle while flanking insurgents in Mosul, ending his military career. Recovery’s rough and gives him all the time in the world to face the question he’s avoided all his life: Why does he feel jealous of women?

The more Thomas searches, the closer he comes to an answer: gender dysphoria.

Seeking therapy as a road through his confusion, Thomas embarks on an unexpected journey as Emily is born. Emily’s route to self-acceptance, love with another woman, and community are only some of the challenges that began the day her world exploded.

Reader Advisory: Transphobic violence.