Three Ways to Disappear – Katy Yocom

Join us for a reading of Three Ways to Disappear, a debut novel by Katy Yocom.

Leaving behind a nomadic career as a journalist, Sarah DeVaughan returns to India, country of her childhood and of unspeakable family tragedy, to help preserve the endangered Bengal tigers. Meanwhile, at home in Kentucky, her sister, Quinn, fears that India will be Sarah’s undoing.

As Sarah’s new job is made complicated by complex local politics and a forbidden love, Quinn copes with their mother’s refusal to discuss the past, her son’s life-threatening illness, and her own increasingly troubled marriage. When Sarah asks Quinn to join her in India, Quinn realizes that the only way to overcome the past is to return to it, and it is in this place of stunning natural beauty and hidden danger that the sisters can finally understand the ways in which their family has disappeared—from their shared history, from one another—and risk everything to find themselves again.

With dramatic urgency, a powerful sense of place, and a beautifully rendered cast of characters, Katy Yocom has created an unforgettable novel about saving all that is precious, from endangered species to the indelible bonds among family.

Katy Yocom hails from Atchison, Kansas; lives in Louisville, Kentucky; and is published by an Oregon publisher. Her debut novel, Three Ways to Disappear, launched this summer from Ashland Creek Press after winning the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature. It has since been named a Barnes & Noble Top Indie Favorite.

In researching the novel, she traveled to Indian tiger reserves, funded by a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Salon, LitHub, American Way in-flight magazine, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Writing from the low-residency program at Spalding University, where she now serves as associate director of the School of Creative and Professional Writing.