DIGITAL EDITION
This Bright Dust (eBOOK)
242 pages
Published: September 3, 2024
Fiction / Novels / Historical Fiction
ePub: 9781773104171 $19.95
From the author of Harper’s Bazaar Hottest Breakout Novel comes a multi-layered, emotionally resonant story.
In 1939, as the Great Depression winds down and war in Europe looms, the small Prairie community of Grayley is all but abandoned. Abel Dodds paces his family’s plot, searching for gold his late father buried in an undisclosed location. When his neighbour Jake Wishart drops by to tell Abel he’s leaving town and to ask if Abel can keep an eye on his sister, Una, and her son and grandfather, Abel reluctantly agrees.
Published: September 3, 2024
Fiction / Novels / Historical Fiction
ePub: 9781773104171 $19.95
From the author of Harper’s Bazaar Hottest Breakout Novel comes a multi-layered, emotionally resonant story.
In 1939, as the Great Depression winds down and war in Europe looms, the small Prairie community of Grayley is all but abandoned. Abel Dodds paces his family’s plot, searching for gold his late father buried in an undisclosed location. When his neighbour Jake Wishart drops by to tell Abel he’s leaving town and to ask if Abel can keep an eye on his sister, Una, and her son and grandfather, Abel reluctantly agrees.
Abel and the Wisharts prepare for the growing season — their last chance to make a living on their debt-burdened farms. When they hear the news of a visit from the king and queen to rally troops, tensions rise. With little food on their tables and a land turned to dust, the unfailingly optimistic Una is convinced that the royal tour will change their lives for the better. But Abel wants a reckoning.
In this lyrical novel, Nina Berkhout artfully brings into focus a story of hope and disillusionment, of disaster and the cultivation of joy, of the relationship between people and the land they inhabit.
In this lyrical novel, Nina Berkhout artfully brings into focus a story of hope and disillusionment, of disaster and the cultivation of joy, of the relationship between people and the land they inhabit.
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Author
Nina Berkhout is the author of three previous novels, most recently Why Birds Sing, which was described as a “must read” by the Globe and Mail and “not to be missed” by the Ottawa Citizen, a Best Book of the Year (Canada) by Audible, and a Great Group Reads selection by the Women’s National Book Association (USA). Her young adult novel The Mosaic was nominated for the White Pine Award and the Ottawa Book Awards and named an Indigo Best Teen Book, and her novel The Gallery of Lost Species was named an Indigo and Kobo Best Book and a Harper’s Bazaar Hottest Breakout Novel. Berkhout is also the author of five poetry collections, including Elseworlds, which won the Archibald Lampman Award. A recent finalist for the Alberta Magazine Awards, her poems have been featured in publications across Canada including Best Canadian Poetry 2024. Originally from Calgary, she lives in Ottawa. This Bright Dust is Berkhout’s fourth novel.
Reviews
“To love and be fearless. This Bright Dust is the story of hope, defiant in a time of drought and impending war. A textured and beautifully written tale of lives swept up by the dust storms and winter blizzards of history, it will haunt readers long after they turn the last page.” — Will Ferguson, author of 419
“Nina Berkhout writes with beautiful clarity of the Dustbowl Thirties in this haunting tale of two families grappling with the Prairie land they live on and love. In its attention to the earth and more-than-human world, as well as questions of how we care for each other amid potential calamity, the novel gains an eerily contemporary resonance. I was immersed.” — Catherine Bush, author of Blaze Island
“Nina Berkhout has constructed a perfect pas de deux, where the characters dance deftly around the words they cannot bring themselves to say. This Bright Dust, the town of Grayley, and its remaining residents will stay with you long after you finish this book.” — Russell Wangersky, author of The Path of Most of Resistance
“In This Bright Dust, Nina Berkhout’s fading town of Grayley has been devastated by the Great Depression. Even for its loyal residents — skinny, haggard, and dwindling in number — it’s a harsh place of droughts and blizzards, where grasshoppers chew through the curtains and the walls are dismantled for fuel. And yet! What a gentle, loving story this is, gracefully told, with a keen understanding of an earlier time. When the dust storm settles, you never know what you might find among the wild roses.” — Kristen den Hartog, author of And Me Among Them
“As the royals’ arrival looms, Berkhout builds tension out of Abel’s outrage and Una’s need for hope. Along the way, she portrays the beauty of flowering wheat fields and the danger of dust storms in stark prose, and she grounds the narrative in themes of neighborliness and self-sacrifice. Readers will be moved.” — Publisher’s Weekly
“Nina Berkhout writes with beautiful clarity of the Dustbowl Thirties in this haunting tale of two families grappling with the Prairie land they live on and love. In its attention to the earth and more-than-human world, as well as questions of how we care for each other amid potential calamity, the novel gains an eerily contemporary resonance. I was immersed.” — Catherine Bush, author of Blaze Island
“Nina Berkhout has constructed a perfect pas de deux, where the characters dance deftly around the words they cannot bring themselves to say. This Bright Dust, the town of Grayley, and its remaining residents will stay with you long after you finish this book.” — Russell Wangersky, author of The Path of Most of Resistance
“In This Bright Dust, Nina Berkhout’s fading town of Grayley has been devastated by the Great Depression. Even for its loyal residents — skinny, haggard, and dwindling in number — it’s a harsh place of droughts and blizzards, where grasshoppers chew through the curtains and the walls are dismantled for fuel. And yet! What a gentle, loving story this is, gracefully told, with a keen understanding of an earlier time. When the dust storm settles, you never know what you might find among the wild roses.” — Kristen den Hartog, author of And Me Among Them
“As the royals’ arrival looms, Berkhout builds tension out of Abel’s outrage and Una’s need for hope. Along the way, she portrays the beauty of flowering wheat fields and the danger of dust storms in stark prose, and she grounds the narrative in themes of neighborliness and self-sacrifice. Readers will be moved.” — Publisher’s Weekly
