MISTY CREEK

In this 19th-century drama, a woman heads to the desolate wilderness of Kansas in order to shake disturbing memories.

Elizabeth Beck suffers a transformative emotional trauma—the man she deeply loves, Jameson Elders, abandons her on their wedding day. Utterly devastated, she answers an advertisement for a new teacher’s position in Misty Creek, a small town in Kansas, a long way from her native Columbus, Ohio. This search for meaning and emotional restoration in what turns out to be a “barren wasteland” is sensitively depicted by Vander Velden: “When she had left Columbus, what seemed an eternity ago, she felt confident she would find freedom from painful memories. A new life, new possibilities but this emptiness, a world devoid of hope could not be the answer she sought.” She’s astonished by the bleakness of the land and the “seemingly unending emptiness,” conditions that force a hard, “tenuous life” on its inhabitants. But danger lurks even in the vast nothingness of her new environment—Elizabeth believes she is being spied on, even stalked, and discovers that five teachers before her left suddenly and without explanation. The author artfully juxtaposes the sullen wretchedness of Kansas’ prairies with the gloominess of Elizabeth’s broken heart. And an unlikely friendship she forges with local miller Matthew Sonnefelt—a “tall dusty man, a man of labor” who initially leaves her “repulsed”—is intelligently, delicately crafted. The story unfolds patiently, even languorously at times, but never slows to a tedious pace—Vander Velden’s precisely incisive prose and the plot’s simmering violence will keep readers reliably engrossed. This is a haunting story, quietly powerful and moving.

An emotionally profound exploration of heartbreak.