Writing in Progress
On the Rails | A Road Novel Meets Addiction Lit
On the Rails introduces Cowboy, a young man full of agitation and wanderlust (and also dodging the cops), who rides freight trains across the 1980s and 90s, on a quest to overcome his demons, find freedom and sobriety and someone to love, especially himself.
Spanning fifteen years, his travels satisfy a thirst to see the country and take him from his small Midwestern town to cities and crime, rail yards and hobo camps. Swayed by drink, he finds himself either in rehab, on the run, or in prison. A chance encounter on a train with a woman and her young son gives him that sense of purpose and belonging he yearns for, though addiction will overpower love and send him spiraling. In his darkest hour, he hops a train toward the Chickasaw Nation in Ada, Oklahoma—where he is an enrolled, though disconnected, citizen—uncertain what lies ahead and if he can conquer his addiction before it kills him and reconcile with the family he craves.
Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and infuriating, On the Rails is inspired by my rebellious and charismatic brother and humanizes our current crises of addiction and homelessness and explores the power of honesty and forgiveness, as well as the contradictions of having a home or wandering, belonging or being free.
It will appeal to readers of Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon (a gritty road novel with a likable mercenary seeking family), Cherry by Nico Walker (the dark and sometimes comic crimes and consequences of addiction), Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (the impacts of self-loathing and shame and desire to escape), and David Joy’s novels (rural noir and coming-of-age).
The Morning Star | A Historical Novel
In the winter of 1918, Dr. Lorne Miller ponders a medical mystery. A young farm boy had knocked on his office door, his parents dying. Then, two more young men unexpectedly died. Boys their age were dying in the mud on the western front of the Great War, not on the plains of Kansas. Confounded by the growing threat before him, Lorne makes a decision he will regret the rest of his life. Seeking salvation, he pursues a vaccine for what he believes is a novel strain of influenza and finds himself embroiled in a public health crisis, power struggles, and politics.
Meanwhile, in defiance, his spirited daughter Helen joins the army to serve as a nurse on the front lines of World War I. Months later, aboard the ship she sails for France, Helen discovers influenza among the troops and knows the contagion has spread. Caught between her desire for independence and a budding romance with one of her patients, she struggles to balance love with duty.
Alternately narrated by Lorne and Helen, father and daughter battle the infection from patient zero to its climax and rely on purpose—a shared commitment to saving lives—and family to find comfort during grief and persevere in the midst of war and disease.
I first became interested in the 1918 influenza pandemic during the 2009 swine flu outbreak. Learning scientists believed the 1918 pandemic originated in my home state of Kansas further hooked me. Though my research and writing of this novel took place some ten years prior to 2020, its coincidence with our own pandemic and exploration of vaccine development and the plight of frontline healthcare workers is eerily prescient. But, though the story feels familiar (strange symptoms, rapid deaths, and the need for a vaccine), it is safely set over 100 years ago, allowing readers to learn how science and public health systems have evolved, but grief, fear, censorship, and politics remain similar.
The novel will appeal to fans of Emma Donoghue and Kristin Hannah. As well, the success of The Pull of the Stars by Donoghue and The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman speak to the evergreen interest in the 1918 pandemic.