Ladette Randolph

OverviewEarly 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 Elsas voice on her estranged sons answering machine: "Your fathers dead. Youll probably want to come...

Twenty-one-year-old Mary Rasmussen discovers that her life has unraveled when she wakes after being in a coma for six weeks. Although the car crash that left her disabled and claimed her husband's life was not her fault, Mary suffers from survivor's guilt and cannot envision a future for herself. The once independent-minded young woman makes the choice to relinquish control over her life by marrying a zealous preacher, who takes her as his "help meet."...