Bottomland

At once intimate and sweeping, Bottomland follows the Hess family in the years after World War I, as they attempt to rid themselves of the Anti-German sentiment that left a stain on their name. But when the youngest two daughters vanish in the middle of the night, the family must piece together what happened while struggling to maintain their life on the unforgiving Iowa plains. In the weeks after Esther and Myrle's disappearance, their siblings desperately search for them, through the stark farmlands to unfamiliar world of far-off Chicago. Have the girls run away to another farm? Have they gone to the city to seek a new life? Or were they abducted? Ostracized and misunderstood in their small town in the wake of the war, the Hesses fear the worst.

Bottomland is a haunting story of pride, love, and betrayal, set among the rugged terrain of Iowa, the fields of war-torn Flanders, and the bustling Chicago streets. With exquisite lyricism, Michelle Hoover deftly examines the intrepid ways a person can forge a life of one's own despite the dangerous obstacles of prejudice and oppression.

Author: Michelle Hoover
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Published: 03/01/2016
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780802124715

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 12/01/2015 pg. 93
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2016
Publishers Weekly 01/11/2016
Booklist 02/01/2016 pg. 29
Shelf Awareness 03/11/2016

About the Author
Michelle Hoover is the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University and teaches at GrubStreet, where she leads the Novel Incubator program. She is a 2014 NEA Fellow and has been a Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University, a MacDowell Fellow, and a winner of the PEN/New England Discovery Award. Her debut, The Quickening, was a 2010 Massachusetts Book Award Must Read." She is a native of Iowa and lives in Boston.