Book excerpt: In the early hours of July 13, 1977, seven female characters - ranging from a nine-year-old girl and her Greek immigrant mother, to a young chef who is losing her vision, to a brown rat - share the same subway platform. They are unaware that the next 24 hours will see them struggling to find their way home, both literally and metaphorically, when a historic power outage hits the city. For the women of Come From Nowhere, this blackout is personal: it brings revelation, self-awareness and, for at least one of them, tragedy.