A Sandhills Ballad
A Sandhills Ballad

Author: Ladette Randolph

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published:

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 080324018X

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After her life as she knows it ends in heartbreak, Mary Rasmussen, a strong-willed and independent young ranch woman living in the Sandhills of western Nebraska, suddenly feels that everything she has believed in--God, her instincts, the land itself--has failed her. She abandons her cultural and emotional ties, succumbing to circumstances she thinks she is powerless to control. In a rash decision, she marries a conservative, patriarchal preacher who doesn't understand her, the ranching community, or anything beyond his own beliefs. Mary's inner turmoil builds as she comes to appreciate the gravity of her situation and the need to take action.

The Nebraska Sandhills
The Nebraska Sandhills

Author: Monica Norby

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1496235835

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"Nearly forty essays about the history, geography, geology, ecology, and conservation of the Nebraska Sandhills, supplemented by numerous remarkable photos of the region"--

Haven's Wake
Haven's Wake

Author: Ladette Randolph

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2013-03-01

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0803245327

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Early July, and the corn in eastern Nebraska stands ten feet tall; after a near-decade of drought, it seems too good to be true, and everyone is watching the sky for trouble. For the Grebels, whose plots of organic crops trace a modest patchwork among the vast fields of soybeans and corn, trouble arrives from a different quarter in the form of Elsa’s voice on her estranged son’s answering machine: “Your father’s dead. You’ll probably want to come home.” When a tractor accident fells the patriarch of this Mennonite family, the threads holding them together are suddenly drawn taut, singing with the tensions of a lifetime’s worth of love and faith, betrayal and shame. Through the competing voices of those gathered for Haven Grebel’s funeral, acts of loyalty and failures, long-suppressed resentments and a tragic secret are brought to light, expressing a larger, complex truth.

Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume Two
Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume Two

Author: Philip A. Greasley

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2016-08-08

Total Pages: 1074

ISBN-13: 0253021162

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The Midwest has produced a robust literary heritage. Its authors have won half of the nation's Nobel Prizes for Literature plus a significant number of Pulitzer Prizes. This volume explores the rich racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the region. It also contains entries on 35 pivotal Midwestern literary works, literary genres, literary, cultural, historical, and social movements, state and city literatures, literary journals and magazines, as well as entries on science fiction, film, comic strips, graphic novels, and environmental writing. Prepared by a team of scholars, this second volume of the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature is a comprehensive resource that demonstrates the Midwest's continuing cultural vitality and the stature and distinctiveness of its literature.

Haven's Wake
Haven's Wake

Author: Ladette Randolph

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2020-03-09

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1496210778

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Early July, and the corn in eastern Nebraska stands ten feet tall; after a near-decade of drought, it seems too good to be true, and everyone is watching the sky for trouble. For the Grebels, whose plots of organic crops trace a modest patchwork among the vast fields of soybeans and corn, trouble arrives from a different quarter in the form of Elsa’s voice on her estranged son’s answering machine: “Your father’s dead. You’ll probably want to come home.” When a tractor accident fells the patriarch of this Mennonite family, the threads holding them together are suddenly drawn taut, singing with the tensions of a lifetime’s worth of love and faith, betrayal and shame. Through the competing voices of those gathered for Haven Grebel’s funeral, acts of loyalty and failures, long-suppressed resentments and a tragic secret are brought to light, expressing a larger, complex truth.

The Meaning of Names
The Meaning of Names

Author: Karen Gettert Shoemaker

Publisher: Red Hen Press

Published: 2014-03-01

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1597092770

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A German-American woman copes with a pandemic, and her neighbors’ hostility during the Great War, in “a heart-rending story of endurance” (Historical Novel Society). Stuart, Nebraska is a long way from the battlefields of Western Europe, but it is not immune to the horrors of the first Great War for Peace. Like all communities, it has lost sons and daughters to the fighting, with many more giving themselves over to the hatred only war can engender. Set in 1918 in the farm country at the heart of America, The Meaning of Names is the story of an ordinary woman trying to raise a family during extraordinary times. Estranged from her parents because she married against their will, confronted with violence and prejudice against her people, and caught up in the midst of the worst plague the world has ever seen, Gerda Vogel, an American of German descent, must find the strength to keep her family safe from the effects of a war that threatens to consume the whole world. “Suddenly, ‘liberty cabbage’ replaces ‘sauerkraut’ on food menus, job advertisements warn ‘no krauts need apply,’ and neighbors demand the nearby university stop teaching courses in ‘that vile language’. . . . Shoemaker crafts eminently realistic characters; her descriptions of unreasonable fear and hatred are particularly effective.” —Publishers Weekly

Private Way
Private Way

Author: Ladette Randolph

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2022-03

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 149623118X

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2023 Nebraska Book Award In 2015, when cyberbullies disrupt her life in Southern California, Vivi Marx decides to cut her cord with the internet and take her life offline for a year. She flees to the one place where she felt safe as a child--with her grandmother in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nevermind that her grandmother is long dead and she doesn't know anyone else in the state. Even before she meets her new neighbors on Fieldcrest Drive, Vivi knows she's made a terrible mistake, but every plan she makes to leave is foiled. Despite her efforts to outrun it, trouble follows her to Nebraska, just not in the ways she'd feared. With the help of her neighbors, Willa Cather's novels, and her own imagination, Vivi finds something she hadn't known she was searching for.