And second, her brother’s death in a car accident that was her dad’s fault – both dad and brother were drunk. First, Nora’s promise to her dying mother to take care of her father and brother, which robbed Nora of her career hopes and tied her to their small town.
And Nora Wheaton, another teacher who was likely Adam’s only friend in their small Nevada town, is pulled in to the mystery, trying to puzzle out not only the murder, but Adam’s tragic past. So it’s especially tragic when Adam is murdered, and it is Sal who finds his charred corpse in the embers of a bonfire. He’s a bit of a sad sack – the students call him Merkel the Turtle – but he sees how much Sal needs a sandwich and some attention, and they soon form a bond. We know this because the family obligation and family tradition is both a source of pride and a heavy burden on each family member.īut a bright spot comes on the horizon – former university professor Adam Merkel starts teaching math at Sal’s school.
The Prentisses live in a trailer near their derelict home, on acreage that has been in the Prentiss family for 170 years. Poor and fatherless, he is one of the rejects in his class, and he knows it, and his life only gets worse when his mother dies of a drug overdose and he goes to live with his uncles, Gideon and Ezra. And in both books, the characters are fully realized and complicated.Īt the heart of The Distant Dead is 6th grader Sal Prentiss. Families – their tragedies and the secrets they keep – are at the heart of both books. Now Young is up for Best Novel, and The Distant Dead has much in common with The Lost Girls. (The winner was actually Flynn Barry’s Under the Harrow, also an excellent book.) I was enthusiastic when I read Heather Young’s Debut Novel, The Lost Girls, and when the book subsequently was nominated for the 2017 Edgar for Best First Novel, it was #1 on the Literary Lunchbox rankings.
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