This Bright Dust

by Nina Berkhout

From the author of Harper’s Bazaar Hottest Breakout Novel comes a multi-layered, emotionally resonant story.

In 1939, as the Great Depression winds down and war in Europe looms, the small Prairie community of Grayley is all but abandoned. Abel Dodds paces his family’s plot, searching for gold his late father buried in an undisclosed location. When his neighbour Jake Wishart drops by to tell Abel he’s leaving town and to ask if Abel can keep an eye on his sister, Una, and her son and grandfather, Abel reluctantly agrees.

Abel and the Wisharts prepare for the growing season — their last chance to make a living on their debt-burdened farms. When they hear the news of a visit from the king and queen to rally troops, tensions rise. With little food on their tables and a land turned to dust, the unfailingly optimistic Una is convinced that the royal tour will change their lives for the better. But Abel wants a reckoning.

In this lyrical novel, Nina Berkhout artfully brings into focus a story of hope and disillusionment, of disaster and the cultivation of joy, of the relationship between people and the land they inhabit.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Canada

Paperback

Published September 3, 2024

About the author

Nina Berkhout is the author of three previous novels, most recently Why Birds Sing, which was described as a “must read” by the Globe and Mail, a Best Book of the Year (Canada) by Audible, and a Great Group Reads selection by the Women’s National Book Association (USA). Her young adult novel The Mosaic was nominated for the White Pine Award and named an Indigo Best Teen Book, and her novel The Gallery of Lost Species was named an Indigo and Kobo Best Book and a Harper’s Bazaar Hottest Breakout Novel. Berkhout is also the author of five poetry collections, including Elseworlds, which won the Archibald Lampman Award. Her poems have been featured in publications across Canada including the Best Canadian Poetry anthology. Originally from Alberta, she lives in Ontario.

Reviews

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bittersweet and poetic. A complete surprise of a book. This book only spans a year, but it feels like you're absorbed into an entire lifetime. I'd dare say a perfect book.

Also kudos to the author for having done her background research to paint a very vivid picture of this historic period.

[Jocelyn Lockyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing book!!! It was so thoughtfully and carefully researched. I was in suspense, hurrying through to learn how the characters would fare in the dust and drought ridden prairies in 1939 and beyond that. It brought back to me the excitement my mother conveyed about being a 14 year old girl guide and got to meet the Queen in 1939 in Winnipeg. Also memories of stories told of family members who farmed in the Prairies during the depression. Certainly one of the highlights of my reading this year. Hopefully, Nina Berkhout will be up for some significant prizes…or maybe next year’s Giller????

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ I found the perspective of an Albertan farmer very interesting during the late 1930s. The struggles against the environmental and political climate was very well illustrated. And it showed the complicated relationship of Canada being a commonwealth before the Second World War. However, the ending did not match the rest of the story - Abel’s decision didn’t seem to be in his character that was portrayed through the first 70% of the book.

[Andrew Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t buy new books often, but the cover is a beautiful (although stark) William Kureluk painting of Bender hamlet, northwest of town.

A well told story of the depression on the Canadian prairie farm. At times witty, and always thoughtful, it has characters out of a WO Mitchel story. The characters themselves recount an awful lot of history, which is my one (of two) complaint - it doesn’t seem natural , or I don’t think everything they recount was necessarily understood at the time.

[Enid Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic Canadian novel. A lovely little read.

If you, like I, devoured the M&S New Canadian Library back in the day, this is a novel for you. That it also speaks to contemporary realities is a bonus.

[Arshdeep Bhullar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant story set in an almost extinct prairie town. I was able to connect with the characters easily. A slow burning page-turner. Best book I’ve read in a long time.

[Wayne Eklof · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*s

[Mike Forestell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay book.

[Diane Dewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Winner of the Ottawa Book Awards, This Bright Dust tells the story of two Saskatchewan families during the dirty thirties. The soil blows away both fields and hope while clogging their houses and lungs. All other folk have fled to the city. Only bachelor Abel and neighbours Una, her grandfather Merle and son Toby are left.

Staying alive takes more than food and water. Una works to instill hope through her engagement with news of the King and Queen's coming train trip across Canada. While the visit does not bring what they expected, thar night does bring a form of happiness and lift the weight of gloom.

This would be a wonderful book club read as there is much material to be mined. I liked it but did find much of the story sad. In some ways, I felt that the play Ten Lost Years caught the spirit of the time better but must admit that the character of Abel will stay with me for a long while.

[Liza_lo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhh, this is such a beautiful tortured book of yearning and heartbreak.

Set mostly in 1939 at the end of the Great Depression and right before the war this is the story of forgotten people in a forgotten place, doing what they must do to survive and finding comfort and solace in each other and in art.

Abel Dodds, a 27 year old farmer and poet, spends most of his time working for Una Wishart, his former classmate and now disgraced unwed mother and love. The two, along with Wishart's family, are now the only residents of their small town where the drought has ruined livelihoods and displaced towns.

While this is a historical book part of it feels downright apocalyptic and all too contemporary. I cherished it. Just a great read.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short novel is about the hardships by many during the 1930s on the Prairies during the drought. It is a love story that never happens. The struggles of 3 families tells how each copes with hardship. King George 6 and Queen Elizabeth visit Canada in 1939. At the end of the novel there is speculation about the real reason they visited. There are some charming moments in this story along with the pain.

[Karen Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure why but this book didn’t catch my interest. This surprised me as I am a Royalist and u was interested in the cross Canada trek by the royal couple.. Books about the dirty thirties seem so glum.

[Jon Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was a great read until the end. I feel the ending didn't fit the book at all.

[Alison Gadsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

January 1939, Abel Dodds is a 27-year-old farmer, living alone in a close-to-abandoned-town of Grayley, Alberta. Trapped by poverty and circumstance, because of the neglect of the Canadian government, the great dust storms of the 1930s and the death of his father, Abel survives mostly on eggs and rabbit – and on working to make life better for his neighbour Una (whom he loves) and her son, Toby. As Winter becomes Spring, they are obsessed with King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth, who are determined to visit Canada despite a looming war. While Abel believes it is a waste of money, and a political tactic by the prime minister to gain favour, he also knows that the visit will affirm to Una (and other struggling Canadians) that their existence means something.

In the span of a year (and a couple of chapters into the war), Nina Berkhout offers a story of survival, love, destiny and the dreamless existence for those whose fates may have been written. With poetic brilliance and stunning visuals, the prairies of wild roses and dust bowls come alive, in THIS BRIGHT DUST, and you’re left asking, if history is a book we’re all writing, why do we keep repeating the worst chapters? Anyone who likes the history of the depression and those strange (detached from reality) years leading up to WWII, will love this novel. Brilliantly drawn characters, a heartbreaking love story, and a fraught setting pull you in from the start, and the ending is....holy moly...is this an ending. 💔

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