Published to wide acclaim in early January, the affecting Y is a novel of myriad pleasures, the most obvious being Celona’s sensitive, psychologically complex conception of Shannon, a character who refuses to leave one’s consciousness.   

 Marjorie Celona’s Y and Leah Stewart’s The History of Us are more than just novels by writers who happen to be female; they’re sensitive, psychologically complex works that deal the nature of identity in ways both singular and incisive.