A Cup of Dust

Book excerpt: Where you come from isn’t who you are “Riveting. An achingly beautiful tale told with a singularly fresh and original voice.” —Jocelyn Green, award-winning author of the Heroines Behind the Lines Civil War series Ten-year-old Pearl doesn’t understand a lot of things—why her sister’s brain doesn’t work right, why the preacher yells so much, why Jesus and the president seem to have forgotten all about Oklahoma. But she does know who she is: Pearl Spence, daughter of the esteemed town sheriff. Generous and always ready to help in a crisis, the Spences bring hope to this desolate town, and Pearl is proud of her family. She knows who she is, she knows she is loved, and even in unrelenting hardship, life feels secure. Not even the dust that sweeps incessantly across Red River can quench her hopes and dreams. But someone else seems to know who she is, too, and he makes Pearl uneasy. From the moment the mysterious hobo steps off the train and stares at her with his cold blue eyes, Pearl’s secure world begins to unravel. How does Eddie know her name? Why does he seem to hover everywhere she turns? And why does he act like he knows something about her family that she doesn’t? Pearl is determined to avoid him, but Eddie is bent on forcing his way into her life and disrupting her family’s shaky tranquility. The more he badgers Pearl, the greater her confusion, until the storm within her rivals the swirling of dust and dirt without. “The author does a great job of giving the reader a feel for those dark days in our nation’s history. Very intriguing reading!” —Virgil Dwain McNeil, a Dust Bowl survivor