The Lifeguard — Laura Kasischke

In the town of Mission Hills, Michigan, an elementary school child drowns in the Olympic-sized pool at a summer swim club. By most, but not all, the lifeguard on duty that afternoon -- a teenage girl who becomes the central focus of a town looking for an object onto which their fears and grief can be projected -- is seen as responsible for the tragedy. In overlapping narratives, the truth about the drowning gradually surfaces, and the strange arbitrary but inexorable nature of fate is exposed.