In "Lacemakers," Claire McQuerry investigates the timeless questions of relationships, of loss and longing, and of environment both natural and manmade. This informal yet haunting collection juxtaposes a myriad of perspectives--public and personal, interior and exterior, sacred and secular--to explore the fathomless mysteries that abound between one human and another. From the metallic hum of the air conditioner to the thrumming of quail wings in the Arizona desert, from the necklace of brake lights on the freeway to the more dangerous and intimate highways of the human heart, McQuerry explores the impact of our environments, both urban and natural, on humankind. Spirituality clashes with modernity in the holiest of places, and we are relentlessly confronted with the irreconcilable otherness of our fellow man. Above all, "Lacemakers "returns obsessively to separations, offering searing insight into our inability to truly know another person, meditating on the subtle abysses that eternally divide us from others.