Queen of the Sugarhouse

Constance Studer's collection of short stories, Queen of the Sugarhouse, brings to life strongly drawn characters dealing with challenging circumstances. A registered nurse in ICU struggles to do the right thing after she makes a mistake. A homeless Desert Storm veteran grieves for his own loss of health, as well as for the loss of his father. Two women test their life-long friendship while one of them undergoes a facelift. A doctor's life is forever changed during one twenty-four hour shift in the Emergency Room. A writer, committed to a psychiatric hospital because of an accident, uses her writing to heal. A novice nurse learns her job from taking care of a confused old man who has suffered a stroke. A waitress struggles with caring for her younger brother, who has muscular dystrophy. A daughter reluctantly comes home to nurse her difficult mother, who drove first her husband then her daughter to flee the Ohio farm where their livelihood was making maple sugar. "e;Every person has a story,"e; Carl Jung observed. "e;Derangement happens when the story is denied. To heal, the patient needs to rediscover his story."e; Constance Studer's characters find healing in making pottery, taking photographs of objects not usually thought of as beautiful, in climbing mountains, in writing a novel. Healing is a process, a journey toward balance, connectedness, meaning and wholeness, rather than an outcome.