The Many Stones of Colby Cairns is the fictional memoir of Colby Cairns and her coming-of-age as a young lesbian during the 1970s and 1980s in the small desert town of Yuma, Arizona.
Colby is comfortable with death. It’s a trait she shares with her mortician mother, Margaret. Colby is not at all comfortable with life, a trait she shares with her truck-driving father, Charles, who soothes his discomfort with a little too much beer and far too many nameless women. Colby wants nothing more than to be normal. But trying to be normal in the small town where your mother drains the dead for a living has its challenges.
At seven-years-old, Colby finds a much needed friend in Lynnette Peat. Lynnette is everything Colby isn’t. She’s outgoing, fearless, funny, and she likes boys (especially boys who smell like motor oil and corn nuts).
In their junior high years, when Colby develops feelings for a fellow female softball player, it is Lynnette who helps her come to terms with her sexuality. However, a few years later in high school, when tragedy strikes Lynnette, a sequence of events is set in motion that drives the girls out of Yuma for good. The Many Stones of Colby Cairns is a story of love in many different manifestations. But at the core, it’s one girl’s quest for acceptance. From her small town. From her family. From herself.