Dust

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

This complex young-adult novel is set in the Cyprus Hills near the
parched wheat belt of southwest Saskatchewan during the depression of
the 1930s, when drought compounded economic difficulties for farmers.
Seven-year-old Matthew disappears while walking to the town near his
farm. Matthew’s 12-year-old brother Robert, who had been at home
reading Jules Verne when Matthew set out, feels that Matthew’s
disappearance is all his fault. He must help the Mounties find his
brother.

Meanwhile, many strange things are happening in the farming community.
The hens are frightened, and their eggs are full of blood. Other
children go missing. An ominous stranger has recently taken up residence
in a local farm and is promising the locals a rainmaking machine.
Robert, who is on the cusp between boy and man, is sustained by a happy
dream that shows his brother in a coyote’s den.

This reviewer found the plot a little too intricate, sometimes
confusing, and not always convincing. The portrait of the dust-ridden
town and its beleaguered inhabitants is solidly good, but Slade’s
writing sometimes fails to induce the necessary suspension of belief in
the apparently paranormal events going on there.

Slade himself grew up in the Cyprus Hills and now writes fulltime from
his home in Saskatoon. He is the author of the Northern Frights series
of young-adult novels based on old Icelandic folk tales. Recommended
with reservations.