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Bait - The Novel
A radical lesbian sister...
her conservative Christian brother...
and the woman they both desire...
It's been ten years, since JD "Jax" Madigan has been to Sunday dinner with her family. Born and raised in Pennsylvania Dutch country by her evangelical, fundamentalist Christian parents, Jax's radical lesbianism has made peaceful co-existence with her conservative relatives impossible. Living free and independent in Center City Philadelphia, Jax has successfully built a life that has almost nothing to do with the straitlaced rural world of her upbringing. Her only steady contact with her past is with her younger brother, Danny, who keeps in touch, despite his objections to her "lifestyle choices."
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But when Danny meets and brings home the woman of his dreams, Jax finds herself once more drawn into a family dynamic that is both rewarding and punishing, and - even after all these years - intimately familiar. Danny's girl, Jenn, is beautiful, poised, articulate, and eager to spend time with Jax. And it doesn't take more than a few visits to reveal she's as attracted to both Jax and Danny, as they are to her.
As the whole Madigan family comes together for the first time in years, long-buried tensions rise to the surface between the conservative Christian parents and siblings and the free-thinking lesbian sister/daughter. What's more, the outsider Jenn is hiding secrets of her past which could jeopardize everything that Danny has hoped and worked for, over long, long years of seeking his Suitable Mate. Many assumptions held dearly, fall by the wayside, and the glaring differences between family members become all the more apparent as they ride a rollercoaster of love and loyalty and broken promises. Each one in the conflicted Madigan family must decide how they will react and interact with one another, while staying true to their faith, their conscience, and their integrity. Weighing questions of sin and redemption... love and sibling rivalry... secrets and revelation... each member of the family must discover anew how best to be a family.
Chronicling the intersection of family, faith and desire, in both city and country, Bait explores the limits of love and loyalty, sibling rivalry and tempting taboo. In a volatile mix of wit and wantonness, religious devotion and conflicting, irreversible personal choices, brother and sister, parents and children, in-laws and outlaws, must all decide how far they will go, to save someone's soul.
Expect the Unexpected
Danny Madigan is a Pennsylvania German of devout pietist extraction...
Jennifer Levin, the granddaughter of a Brookline, Massachusetts rabbi, is a lifelong evangelical fundamentalist Christian...
And then there's JD, or Jax, Danny's radical urban lesbian sister and confidante, who finds herself torn between her loyalty to her brother and a hidden (but growing) emotional entanglement with Jenn, his beloved.
In Bait, a novel of family and faith, all is not what it seems to be.
Set in both the rural landscape of Pennsylvania Dutch country and the streets of Center City Philadelphia, Bait follows twists and turns in the relationship between a loyal sister and her brother, when he brings home a woman they both learn to love and desire. Loyalty, intrigue, betrayal, and the reasons people gather as family -- and stay that way -- mix and intertwine and overlap, as Danny's and Jenn's plans turn permanent... and Jax discovers Jenn's past is rife with reasons for Danny to avoid, not marry, her.
Testing the lifelong connection between Jax and her closest brother, Jenn's choices and actions serve to drive them apart, as much as pull them together. And each one involved in the conflict between faith and fact, desire and history, must decide for themself, how far they will go to save someone's soul.
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