We Are Gathered Here: A Novel, St. Martin’s 1997

The story of two women caught in the rural America of the 1880s, this novel is in part inspired by Perks’ own family history. In it, she invites reappraisal of our own society’s attitudes toward individuality, religion, illness, sexual orientation, and, especially, friendship, as we approach the turn of a new century.

“A moving novel about a hard time in a hard place. That place–a used up mining town in the Adirondack Mountains-has now vanished from the earth, but the spunk that keeps these characters going is eternal.” Bill McKibben

“A wonderful and original first novel– the best I have read in many years.” Alison Lurie

“Serene as the surface of this novel appears at times, We are Gathered Here is nothing short of a woman’s manifesto. It addresses an astonishing array of issues–independence, marriage, work, female companionship, goddess worship, pregnancy, abortion, emotional repression, sexual abuse–all in a tightly woven story that is as fanciful as it is grimly real…This is a book that reaches across more than 100 years of difference between its time and hours to affirm an eternal human need for love, with not a whit of energy lost in the translation.” Los Angeles Times

We Are Gathered Here is now available as an Ebook on Amazon.

Here’s a link to an essay that tells the story of the truth behind the fiction.

Jacket photograph (top): Barry Marcus

Jacket design (top): Henry Sene Yee

Jacket art and design (bottom): Katie Lebel