Dust

1930s Oklahoma, during the Dust Bowl, is a time of great confusion, social, economic, ecological - and the supernatural. In the swirling dust, people are seeing strange, otherworldly creatures as shadowy plants appear from human skin, and half-glimpsed creatures roam the dry prairie. The eerie, mesmerizing interactions with these 'duskin' disrupt lives and livelihood, and an informal organization of 'dust doctors', lonely wanderers, travel the Plains, braving dust storms and drought to help people and understand the duskin better. The best of these wanderers, a man named Draper, is drawn to an isolated town in need of his aid. To enter he must leave his close companions, and there he encounters more mystery, pain, and duskin than ever before, as well as forging strong bonds with the townspeople. One of these is Bobby Sue, a young half-Chinese white-passing schoolteacher, who is determined to protect the children in her care who appear to be able to hear and communicate with the duskin. Submerged conflicts and secrets bind this struggling town to the duskin realm. As Draper, helped by Bobby Sue, races to solve the case, seeking to reveal the nature of the town's enchantment and his own desire to discover and understand duskin, he comes to realize that a unique duskin is examining him back. A fantastical adventure, an epic of the Plains, and a bittersweet exploration of faith and delusion, Dust is a unique and timeless literary fantasy classic.