About the Book
On the morning of April 19, 1995, Delaney Travis steps into the Social Security office in Oklahoma City to obtain an ID for her new job. Moments later, an explosion shatters the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building into rubble. Her boyfriend Keith and half-sister Edie are left to assume the worst—that Delaney perished in the bombing, despite lack of definitive proof. Twenty years later, now married and bonded by the tragedy, Edie and Keith’s lives are upended when they begin to receive mysterious Facebook messages from someone claiming to be Delaney.
Desperate for closure, the couple embarks on separate journeys, each aiming for an artists’ community in New Mexico that may hold answers. Alongside their quest is August, a recovering alcoholic with a haunting connection to the bombing. Raised in the separatist compound of Elohim City, August harbors secrets about Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the attack, and his own possible involvement in the tragedy. When his path crosses with Edie, he must choose whether to tell anyone about his past.
As the 20-year anniversary of the bombing approaches, fracking-induced earthquakes shake the ground of Oklahoma City, mirroring the unsettled lives of its residents. In their quest for answers, Edie, Keith, and August seek to understand how the shadows of the past continue to darken the present, as the ground beneath them threatens to give way once again.
In Low April Sun, acclaimed author Contance Squires has written the first novel to explore the enduring impact of the Oklahoma City bombing. While masterfully weaving a spellbinding mystery, Squires ultimately offers us a moving meditation on grief and forgiveness.
About the Author :
Constance E. Squires is the author of Live from Medicine Park, Along the Watchtower, which won the 2012 Oklahoma Book Award, and Hit Your Brights. Her short stories have been published in The Atlantic, Guernica, The Dublin Quarterly, Shenandoah, Identity Theory, The Rolling Stone 500, and other magazines.
Review :
“Low April Sun is an eminently respectful, irresistibly readable exploration of an American tragedy. Part historical fiction, part ecofiction, part contemporary meditation, Squires’s storytelling captures the lonely spaces within collective grief.”—Sarah Beth Childers, author of Prodigals: A Sister’s Memoir
“Low April Sun possesses the rarest and most important qualities a novel can hold: it has what Joan Didion called ‘moral nerve.’ Its bravery is constant and revelatory, and its relationship with notoriety and tragedy is never mawkish or sensational. Constance Squires is that singular artist who can engage forces and aftershocks as powerful as these with writing that is authentic, thrilling, subtle, and transformative.”—James Reich, author of The Moth for the Star
“Low April Sun is a moving and elegant exploration of grief and forgiveness, of regret and redemption. Constance Squires also tells a helluva story, riveting from first page to last.”—Lou Berney, Edgar-winning author of Dark Ride
"Low April Sun is among the best novels that I've read in quite a few years. Looming over the lives of almost everyone in this taut, riveting, vividly rendered, and deeply humane narrative are Timothy McVeigh and the terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. While immersed in these pages, I felt the earth move. Squires is an extraordinary novelist." —Steve Yarbrough, author of Stay Gone Days and The Unmade World
"Low April Sun holds a mystery, a history, an acute sense of place. Balancing dual timelines in a propulsive narrative, this beautiful novel tells the untold story of then and now: how the pain of trauma radiates in waves long after the act of terrorist violence that ripped open the state and the nation has passed. Constance Squires writes with respect for the wounded, compassion for the lost. She’s an extraordinary stylist, and here she’s writing with the full measure of her powers. A richly compelling and important novel." —Rilla Askew, author of Harpsong and Fire in Beulah
“This evocative, deeply drawn narrative keeps the reader hooked and watching as its characters, in turn, watch us. A vibrantly insightful novel.”—Anne Lauppe-Dunbar, author of Dark Mermaids and The Shape of Her
“Remarkable! Whatever load you’re carrying, lay it down to pick up this terrific, important novel. In Low April Sun, three oh-so-human characters are rocked by the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, oil company fracking, and the earthquakes each triggered in their lives. There’s more than enough guilt to go around, but also a great deal of grace. A regional hero, Squires should be a national treasure, her books alongside those by Denis Johnson and Annie Proulx.”—Mary Kay Zuravleff, author of American Ending and Man Alive!
