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Marjorie Celona's second novel, How a Woman Becomes a Lake, was published in 2020 by Penguin Random House, Penguin Canada, and Virago, and in 2023 in Italy from Bollati Boringhier.

How a Woman Becomes a Lake is the story of a woman who goes missing in a fictional Pacific Northwest fishing town called Whale Bay on New Year’s Day of 1986. Vera, a filmmaker and university professor, takes her dog for a walk during a snowstorm at a popular recreational area called Squire Point and never returns. In the months ahead, the woman's sudden disappearance sets off a chain of events in Whale Bay, spanning out like fracture lines into the lives of her husband, the detective trying to solve her case, and of Jesse and his family--a young boy cracking like ice under the weight of a terrible secret.