Trinity County: A Novel

by Andrew Lynch

When a middle-aged high school teacher is forced to spend the summer with his in-laws in a small Northern California town, he discovers the path to the American Dream comes in many different forms, and he learns the town contains as much contention as his marriage. Narrator Wade Myers, out of financial necessity, spends his summers with his in-laws in Trinity County. There, Wade meets the small business owners pursuing the Dream the traditional way, feeling like they are losing the battle; the off-the-gridder recluse who has given up hope all together; the pot farmers who dropped out of college for the quicker path to financial success; the welfare queen supplementing her government subsidy prostituting in a run-down trailer home; the meth heads who have given up on everything save their next fix; the meth suppliers, a disorganized and dimwitted group known to the locals as the 3M boys; the naïve college students oblivious that despite what they have been told college is the wrong path for them; the anachronistic gold-miners seeking the coveted El Dorado; plus a councilman, Levi Powell, pushing for a highway bypass around the main town of Weaverville, even though most realize without Highway 299 running through the town, the town will die. To gather support, Powell will politicize the death of a young girl. While Wade Myers meets all the different sorts, he struggles physically, recovering from a surgically-repaired Achilles tendon at the age of 41; mentally, from the revelation he accomplished none of the dreams and goals he once had; and emotionally, as he sees his wife Claire turn from him when her old high school boyfriend shows up, (even Wade’s two boys favor the youth, charm, and exuberance of Nick to their disconsolate father.) Defeated, he resigns to an unfulfilled career, an unfaithful wife, and a body revolting against a once athletic frame, losing the battle to that undefeated champion, Time. The Fourth of July parade brings together all parties to one road, the Main Street of Weaverville, when and where the town’s contention over the bypass, Wade’s relationship with his wife and boys, and Wade’s relationship with himself, simultaneously reach a climax.

390 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 20, 2018