Upper Valley resident Edith Forbes read from her first novel, ''Alma Rose," yesterday to a gathering of 23 people in Sanborn House.
"Alma Rose" tells the story of a young lesbian woman who grows up in a small town in America and, after a romantic affair with a boisterous female truck driver, gradually sheds her shy exterior.
Forbes said one of her friends aptly described "Alma Rose" as "a book about the inner life of the terminally shy."
She explained that the novel told the story of a young woman discovering her lesbian sexuality and growing up in the West.
Forbes read three excerpts from her novel in a quiet, monotonous voice. She still managed to elicit laughter from the small audience, which was comprised mostly of non-students.
Forbes, who has lived in the Upper Valley for the past 14 years, published "Alma Rose" last summer and since then has toured New England to do readings of it.
"It's good to be at Dartmouth," Forbes said.
The Coalition for Gay, Lesbian , and Bisexual Concerns, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action and the Carpenter Foundation sponsored the reading, which took place in Sanborn's Wren Room.
