Little Cavendish (Paperback or Softback)

What if your chosen family includes a sibling you left behind?

It’s 1989 and Iris Cavendish has been in flight. She’s estranged from the family she had to leave to survive, but soaring in her career as a flight attendant. Emboldened by a move into her own apartment and encounters with a woman she might love, Iris decides to reconnect with the little brother she left behind.

In a time before cell phones, GPS, or internet access, Iris tracks down Luke at college in New Mexico and travels there to find him. After the shock of reunion, Iris helps Luke defuse a threatening situation. And she clarifies some of his misunderstandings about their family, while other questions remain, obscured by the blur of childhood memory.

This literary novella about sibling love and coming out explores themes of trauma and dissociation, abandonment and reunion.

“O’Dea has written a novella that contains surprising, humorous twists and even more surprising ordinary beauty. With Iris and her brother Luke, we are reminded that the bonds of familial love do not fade if that love is true, and that there is no such thing as an ordinary home, that there is nothing ordinary about building a life that is solid and safe. In fact, it is nothing short of miraculous.” – Paula Bomer author of The Stalker

“A confident debut written with a deft lyrical style, O’Dea takes the reader on a journey of healing past sibling estrangement, bringing us to a fulfilling and moving conclusion.” – Scott Alexander Hess author of Drought

Lori O’Dea is a fiction writer, literary critic, and gallerist living in Chicago and northern Minnesota. Her work appears in The Massachusetts Review, The Gay & Lesbian Review, LIBER, Bridge, and other publications. She is a graduate of St. John’s College, Santa Fe and holds an M.A. in literature & creative writing from City College of New York.

Lori O'Dea is a fiction writer, literary critic, and gallerist living in Chicago and northern Minnesota. Her work appears in The Massachusetts Review, The Gay & Lesbian Review, LIBER, Bridge, and other publications. She is a graduate of St. John's College, Santa Fe and holds an M.A. in literature & creative writing from City College of New York.