Ithaca is the story of how sudden change comes into a slow life. For 39 years, Daisy Turner has been a professor’s wife, typing his notes and helping out. The centerpiece of her life is a weekly open house—a dinner party that always features soup. And then, one day, her husband drops dead. Daisy has nothing to hold onto—except, perhaps, the soup. Then, suddenly, Daisy finds herself entangled with a man whose wife is disabled, mothering a young environmental activist farmer, and swept into the controversy about fracking that has begun to concern their small Ivy League town. What happens when a quiet, almost sedimentary life meets the high-pressure forces of a small town? How does one rebuild after life as you know it is suddenly turned upside down—or is fracked?