Dust

Jeff VanderMeer meets Phillip Pullman in this debut historical fantasy that takes place in an alternative 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Chinese Exclusion Act.

1930s Oklahoma, during the Dust Bowl, is a time of great confusion: social, economic, ecological—and supernatural. In the flowing dust, some people are seeing strange, otherworldly creatures, while others insist this is superstition, heresy, fraud, or madness. Shadowy flora supposedly sprout from human skin, and half-glimpsed fauna roam the dry prairie. As eerie, mesmerizing interactions with these “duskin” interfere with lives and livelihood, an informal organization of “dust doctors,” travel the Plains, braving dust storms and drought to help people and explore the duskin.

The best of these wanderers, a man named Draper, is drawn to an isolated town in need of his aid. To enter he must leave his close companions, and there he encounters more mystery, pain, and duskin than ever before, as well as strong bonds with townspeople who challenge and aid him. One of these is Bobby Sue, a twenty-five-year-old half-Chinese, white-passing school teacher who is increasingly determined to understand what is happening in her home, Boise City. 

Submerged conflicts and secrets bind this once thriving town to the duskin realm, and as these creatures further overwhelm the human residents, their very sense of reality is shaken. Warring explanations abound for the phenomena that only some people can see, but Draper begins to realize that the real threat might be more concrete, more human, than he could have imagined.