Alta Corral is a unique character in contemporary fiction-a young woman confident, even nonchalant, about her sexual conquests of other women. She works at a tattoo parlor, rides a motorcycle, & has slept with every girl in San Francisco who is so inclined. But none can replace Sasha "Shy" Mallon. As teenagers, Shy & Alta discovered themselves together; then Shy fled for Seattle & a relationship with a man. Now she has returned, pregnant, to be at her dying mother's bedside. Alta joins her there; & soon they are tending towards intimacy again, in a way that shakes up their notions of who they are, as well as opening up the secrets of their mothers' lives. Elizabeth Stark writes about the lesbian culture of San Francisco in a wry, winning fashion; in Shy Girl she plumbs the ambiguities of relationships in ways that speak to all of us.