Not Waving, Drowning — Linda Sands

Not Waving, Drowning is the story of three women bound in a poetic tapestry: Modern day architectural photographer Maggie Morris is called to Savannah when her husband is presumed drowned. While looking into his mysterious disappearance, she's forced to open herself up to new possibilities when she falls in love with a lighthouse restorer. Bobbie Denton, an 1889 NY reporter running from her past ends up in Savannah where she finds both love and a legend, when she uncovers the story of The Waving Girl- a woman thought to be crazy- greeting ships from her island home by waving a cloth by day and a lantern by night. Flora Martus, The 72 year old Waving Girl of Savannah, tells all her secrets to the mortician's daughter on one day in 1940 when she lays her beloved brother, the lighthouse keeper to rest. Using the poetry of Stevie Smith as the through line, this tapestry of stories weaves a common thread of humanity in that love can't be judged, the past can't be rewritten, and not everyone can be saved.