Torch, by Cheryl Strayed, is one of the most exquisite debut novels I have read in years, but the writing is nearly invisible. Look at this opening line, for instance: “She ached. As if her spine were a zipper and someone had come up behind her and unzipped it and pushed his hands into her organs and squeezed, as if they were butter or dough, or grapes to be smashed for wine.” Yikes! It’s a powerful image, and it makes my insides contract. But the writing is simple; there aren’t any words longer than two syllables, and 83 percent of the words are single syllables. Theresa Rae Wood has just been told she is dying of cancer. She’s going to beat it, she tells herself and her family, and she really believes it. But what if she’s wrong? What will happen to her husband and children? Without her, her family will be splintered, each person making choices more or less self-destructive. Theresa herself is a great character. A hippy in redneck Minnesota, she hosts (for no pay) a radio talk show called Modern Pioneers that discusses everything from herbal medicine and organic gardening to green alternatives to tampons. Her children (a college age daughter and teenage son) are proud and ashamed of her, in equal doses. She signs off each week with the line, “Work hard. Do good. Be incredible.” Not a bad way to live one’s life. There is much more I’d like to say, but I can’t without spoilers. But, as the jacket copy reads, it’s a story about “shifting rhythms between siblings and parents and for the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living.” With a blurb from Elizabeth Berg (on the front cover!), and positive reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews, it's no surprise that this debut author has an MFA from Syracuse University, has won awards for her short stories, and been anthologized in Best American Essays and Best New American Voices. I expect we'll be seeing a lot of her in the future.