Cathedral Ledge

Cathedral Ledge is about monumental courage. Alice is a battered child, crippled by schizophrenia and a phobia of men. High on a cliff . her Cathedral Ledge . she communes with a petroglyph and the spirit of its artist, creating elaborate fantasies about ancient Indians. Obsessed with scholarship, by ten she's an expert, self-taught archaeologist. Needing university training, she must overcome the man-phobia. Even worse, in 1953 Colorado, the forces of McCarthyism and religious fundamentalism will not leave her alone. Kidnapped by authorities, she is stuck in an orphanage and subjected to unimagined horrors. Yet, through it all, she rejects original sin, insisting people are basically good. Alice must create a rational life in an irrational world.