Dog on Fire

Terese Svoboda

Out of a Shakespearean-wild Midwest dust storm, a man rises. “Just a glimpse of him,” says his sister; “every inch of him,” says his guilt-filled lover. “Close your eyes,” says his nephew. “What about it?” asks his father. The cupboard is filled with lime Jell-O, and there are aliens, deadly kissing, and a restless, alcoholic mother who carries a gun. “Every family is this normal,” insists the narrator. “Whoever noticed my brother, with a family as normal as this?” the beleaguered sister asks. Against the smoky prairie horizon and despite his seizures, a brother builds a life. Imbued with melancholy cheer, Dog on Fire unfolds around a family’s turmoil, past loves, and a mysterious death.

Terese Svoboda is the award-winning author of twenty books of poetry, prose, memoir, biography, and translation, including the novel Bohemian Girl (Nebraska, 2011), the memoir Black Glasses Like Clark Kent, and a forthcoming novel, Roxy and Coco

Toby's Last Resort PAMELA CARTER JOERN

Toby Jenkins, the oldest surviving member of her family, has opened a summer residence program in the Nebraska Sandhills for the wounded and broken, misfits and dreamers. Besides her guests—a minister on sabbatical and a woman recovering from cancer treatment—Toby is joined by Anita and Luís, her hired help; Anita’s brother Gabe; and someone Toby least expected, her nearly estranged daughter, Nola Jean. Mother-daughter tensions, age-old prejudices, and generational divides challenge the members of this disparate community as they bump up against each other. Parallel conflicts occur against the backdrop of a changing rural landscape where history clashes with evolving mores. In this thoughtful and moving novel Pamela Carter Joern probes the complications of family relationships, identity, belonging, and the impact of long-held secrets.

Pamela Carter Joern is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, playwright, and teacher of writing. She is the author of The Floor of the Sky (Nebraska, 2006), In Reach (Bison Books, 2014), and The Plain Sense of Things (Nebraska, 2008).

March 2023

252 pages

Fiction / Nebraska / Great Plains / Midwest

Rights: World