The Treehouse

Camilla Thompson, a Humanities college professor who never did write that Great American Novel, hasn't seen her son Nico for two years.

One morning she drives to the house where her ex, Allison, is still raising Nico. Knowing that they are away for a week's vacation, Camilla begins to build a treehouse as a surprise for the son she's not allowed to see.

But Camilla's regrets, grief, and lack of construction skills aren't the only challenges she'll face. Old friends and unexpected visitors show up to help--and complicate matters. Free-spirited Taylor, Camilla's best friend, arrives with her lover, Audrey, whom Camilla finds herself falling for. Then Wallace, Camilla's Department Chair, disrupts everything with startling news that threatens to end Camilla's career.

At first an impulsive idea, the treehouse soon promises to be an oasis for Camilla's redemption that could free her for another chance at love and family. Then again, it might simply be just a bad decision.

Randi Triant spent ten years as a documentary and medical education writer and producer before receiving her Master in Fine Arts in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in literary journals and magazines. Her first story, "Tequila Sunrise", was published under the pen name Berit Fortier in the seminal gay magazine, Christopher Street. After losing her best friend to AIDS, she published several short stories shedding light on the AIDS crisis. Her story "The Memorial" was included in the Third World Press anthology, Fingernails Across the Blackboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS from the Black Diaspora and the short story "The Pecking Order" was chosen for an anthology published by Black Lawrence Press, Art & Understanding: Literature from the First Twenty Years of A&U. She's taught writing at Emerson College and Boston College, and lives in Massachusetts. The Treehouse is her first novel.