{"product_id":"the-flicker-of-old-dreams-a-novel-isbn-9780062686701","title":"The Flicker of Old Dreams: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHigh Plains Book Award Winner for\u003cbr\u003eFiction \u003c\/strong\u003e• \u003cstrong\u003eWestern Writers of America\u003cbr\u003eSpur Award Winner for Best Contemporary  Western Novel \u003c\/strong\u003e• \u003cstrong\u003e WILLA Literary Award Winner\u003cbr\u003ein Contemporary Fiction \u003c\/strong\u003e• \u003cstrong\u003eMontana Book Award Honor Book\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWith the quiet precision of Jane Smiley’s \u003cem\u003eA Thousand Acres\u003c\/em\u003e and the technical clarity of Mary Roach’s \u003cem\u003eStiff\u003c\/em\u003e, this is a novel about a young woman who comes most alive while working in her father’s mortuary in a small, forgotten Western town.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"The dead come to me vulnerable, sharing their stories and secrets . . . \"\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMary Crampton has spent all of her thirty years in Petroleum, a small Western town once supported by a powerful grain company. Living at home, she works as the embalmer in her father’s mortuary: an unlikely job that has long marked her as an outsider. Yet, to Mary there is a satisfying art to positioning and styling each body to capture the essence of a subject’s life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThough some townsfolk pretend that the community is thriving, the truth is that Petroleum is crumbling away—a process that began twenty years ago when an accident in the grain elevator killed a beloved high school athlete. The mill closed for good, the train no longer stopped in town, and Robert Golden, the victim’s younger brother, was widely blamed for the tragedy and shipped off to live elsewhere. Now, out of the blue, Robert has returned to care for his terminally ill mother. After Mary—reserved, introspective, and deeply lonely—strikes up an unlikely friendship with him, shocking the locals, she finally begins to consider what might happen if she dared to leave Petroleum.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet in the American West, \u003cem\u003eThe Flicker of Old Dreams\u003c\/em\u003e explores themes of resilience, redemption, and loyalty in prose as lyrical as it is powerful.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe dead come to me vulnerable, sharing their stories and secrets. . . .\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMary Crampton has spent all of her thirty years in Petroleum, a small western town once supported by its grain industry. Living at home, she works as the embalmer in her father’s mortuary: an unlikely job that has long marked her as an outsider. Yet, to Mary, there is a satisfying art to positioning and styling each body to capture the essence of a subject’s life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThough some townsfolk pretend that the community is thriving, the truth is that Petroleum is crumbling away—a process that began twenty years ago when an accident in the grain elevator killed a beloved high school athlete. The granary closed for good, the train no longer stopped in town, and Robert Golden, the victim’s younger brother, was widely blamed for the tragedy and shipped off to live elsewhere. Now, out of the blue, Robert has returned to care for his terminally ill mother. After Mary—reserved, introspective, and deeply lonely—strikes up an unlikely friendship with him, shocking the locals, she finally begins to consider what might happen if she dared to leave Petroleum.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet in America’s Great Plains, \u003cem\u003eThe Flicker of Old Dreams\u003c\/em\u003e explores themes of resilience, redemption, and loyalty in prose as lyrical as it is powerful.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“Susan Henderson’s \u003cem\u003eThe Flicker of Old Dreams \u003c\/em\u003eis a clear-eyed, wise, and poignant tale of losses and gains, told with tremendous empathy and grace.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTherese Anne Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eThe Flicker of Old Dreams\u003c\/em\u003e is at once a vivid and wildly compelling study of small town American life and an intimate and incisive exploration of the human condition, from love to loss and beyond.”    - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJonathan Evison, the New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Susan Henderson offers us the wondrous, sharp picture of the small town of Petroleum, Montana where the past comes back on two feet and a blizzard rages. \u003cem\u003eThe Flicker of Old Dreams\u003c\/em\u003e is a fine novel, heartfelt and bracing company. It is a gem.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRon Carlson, author of Five Skies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eThe Flicker of Old Dreams\u003c\/em\u003e is at once a vivid and wildly compelling study of small town American life and an intimate and incisive exploration of the human condition, from love to loss and beyond. If Shirley Jackson and Kent Haruf had a love child, she might write like Susan Henderson.”    - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJonathan Evison, New York Times bestselling author of West of Here\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Like the wind scours paint from an old grain silo, Susan Henderson’s writing scours away all the pretend niceness of small town life in Montana to reveal the frayed and patched nature of humanity.  Nobility, ragged resilience and hope compete with small-minded ignorance in a story of unlikely friendship that is sharply detailed and so beautifully written.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHelen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Before the War\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Susan Henderson has secured her position as one of my favorite novelists. You won’t be able to turn away from this tender, elegiac and haunting novel that beautifully exposes the human heart, the human body, and the human condition.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJessica Anya Blau, author of the nationally bestselling novel The Summer of Naked Swim Parties\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This novel is so breathtakingly good, so exquisitely written. About a female mortician, about a childhood tragedy that still haunts a damaged young man, about the endless landscape and about those tiny sparks of possibility. Oh my God. Trust me. This book. This book. This Book.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCaroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Cruel Beautiful World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A truly magnificent work of art. The soul energy that is pushing through this story is unstoppable, beautiful, vulnerable, powerful. It reads like a song, an elegy to the dead and dying and death itself with such a freshness of discovery as if all this death and dying were actually some deep part of living. Her microscopic and telescopic eyes see it all and give the reader an insight to humanity from almost every angle. Her sense of place is as good as the greatest of writers.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJessica Keener, author of Night Swim and Strangers in Budapest\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A truly magnificent work of art. The soul energy that is pushing through this story is unstoppable, beautiful, vulnerable, powerful.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJessica Keener, author of Night Swim and Strangers in Budapest\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Like the wind scours paint from an old grain silo, Susan Henderson’s writing scours away all the pretend niceness of small town life in Montana to reveal the frayed and patched nature of humanity.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHelen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Before the War\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888918753509,"sku":"NP9780062686701","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062686701.jpg?v=1730230100","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-flicker-of-old-dreams-a-novel-isbn-9780062686701","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}