At the Far End of Nowhere

Young Baby Boomer Lissa Power struggles to grow up during the tumultuous 1950s, 60s, and 70s under the guidance of her father, Stouten—a watchmaker, inventor, and mechanical wizard easily old enough to be her grandfather. When Lissa’s mother dies, the reclusive old watchmaker remains determined to protect his beloved daughter from all harm. As Lissa matures, Stouten’s authority becomes increasingly restrictive; his old-fashioned worldview chafes against a backdrop of fast-changing 20th century values. Here, At the Far End of Nowhere, father and daughter weave fact with fiction and merge reality with fantasy to reveal a broader truth.

Christine Davis Merriman of Baltimore, Marlyland

Christine DavisMerriman completed her MFA in Imaginative Writing/Fiction at UMass Amherst forty years ago. As an undergrad, she won Towson State University’s John S. Lewis Fiction Award for a collection of short stories, and was eager to pursue a career in fiction. Then “life” intervened, with marriage, a son, divorce, a second marriage, and a thirty-year career at Johns Hopkins. In 2017, she retired, put down her technical writer’s pen, and completed her debut novel, At the Far End of Nowhere. Christine and her husband live in a 1929 farmhouse in northern Baltimore County, Maryland.