Home and Away — Joanne Meschery

Spanning the 100-day Persian Gulf War and a small California town's girls' basketball season, "Home and Away" is the story of Hedy Gallagher Castle, a woman who has reached a crossroads in her life. A straddler by nature, Hedy finds herself doing a balancing act on all fronts as her daughter approaches womanhood, her father enters a no-man's-land of bewilderment after a stroke, and her husband departs in search of the lost athletic glory of his youth. At the same time, the divisive political issues of the greater worldthe Gulf War, abortion, gay rights, and fundamentalismencroach on Hedy's increasingly fragile private one. As the tensions mount, Hedy learns to take a sideher own sidefor the first time in her life, reawakening to a sense of love and loss."