The Topography of Hidden Stories

Centering on female protagonists forced to break free

The women in the stunning stories of The Topography of Hidden Stories grapple with doubt and disquiet in their search for love and connection. Many are trapped in a pious patriarchy of their New England Irish Catholic families that has yet to loosen its control of women’s lives, especially their creative power and fertility. Through prose glistening with imagery and figurative language, these characters confront their lives with sharp eyes, ironic wit, and a potent sense - sometimes furious, other times befuddled - of their own historical matrix.

Buy Now on:
Amazon • Bookshop.org • Indie Bound

Buy Now

  • “Julia MacDonnell uses her rich writing style to highlight her understanding of characterization and the complex nature of human relationships in every story featured in THE TOPOGRAPHY OF HIDDEN STORIES, a collection that will delight any reader who approaches life from a feminist perspective."

    ★★★★★

    — Stephani Hren for IndieReader

    Full Review

  • "The Topography of Hidden Stories breathtakingly sweeps through the last half of the 20th century, speaking to major events (JFK, the Vietnam War, Hippie culture, Princess Di) as well as major issues of the day (poverty, violence, teenage pregnancy, mental illness, and cancer, to name a few.) With vivid detail and exact cultural references, from Frank Sinatra and Simplicity pattern dresses, these stories take us to a moment and keep us wholly there… The collection centers on female protagonists who are forced to break free at an early age from their New England Irish Catholic families. The stories in this collection “cut…deep and clean.” They linger in the subconscious. They are stories “that stop but [do] not end.”

    — Nathan Alling Long, author of The Origin of Doubt, Lambda Award finalist

  • "What's better than a book with a captivating story? A book with 13 different captivating stories! I loved how each story in TheTopography of Hidden Stories holds a new, delightful experience waiting to be unwrapped like a Christmas gift."

    — Foluso Falaye, Readers’ Favorite

  • "Julia MacDonnell just as effortlessly captures the voice of a teenager pondering a heartbreaking choice as she does that of a middle-aged matron coping with a life-threatening illness."

    — Barbara Oliverio, Readers’ Favorite

  • "Some of these slice-of-life stories will resonate with you in a personal way, while others you can understand in the universal. The writing is so vivid you can easily see them playing out in arthouse films. The messages in the stories are sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, but always there."

    — Tammy Ruggles, Readers’ Favorite

  • "Julia MacDonnell’s new short story collection, “The Topography of Hidden Stories,” is a triumph of imaginative grace worthy of Alice Munro. But this is different. MacDonnell forgives nothing. There are no characters worthy of our forgiveness. There is no feminist jargon. The parents – mothers and fathers alike – are characterized by their neglect and indifference to their children. There are no sustaining figures to make life more tolerable. This is a novel in stories, but it could easily be a novel. Names of characters change, none are redeemed. Yet when you finish, you don’t feel depressed, you feel satisfied. I love this book."

    — Joan Mellen, author of Hellman and Hammett: The Legendary Passion of Lilliam Hellman and Dashiell Hammett and 22 other works of fiction and nonfiction.

Previous

Hidden Girls: A Birth Mother’s Story of Reunion and Reckoning
Next

Mimi Malloy at Last!