From the author of the widely acclaimed The Chinchilla Farm comes a hauntingly wise novel about a woman coming to terms with herself as a mother; a lover; an artist, and a friend.
Twenty-five years after she last saw him, Lucy Patterson has been briefly reunited with Dr. Carlos Cabrera, who saved her son's life but wrenched her own onto a violent trajectory of loss. Now Lucy has retreated to an isolated motel outside Las Vegas, hoping to make sense of this visitation from her past.
But in the next room the present is calling, in the person of a young stripper who is as troubled and needy as Lucy herself once was. What ensues between them -- and between Lucy and the ghosts of her former life -- makes A Desert of Pure Feeling a work of vast sensitivity and power.

Judith Freeman is the author of three novels–The Chinchilla Farm, Set for Life, and A Desert of Pure Feeling–and of Family Attractions, a collection of stories. She lives in California.