"Michael Parker has captured a time, place, and sisterhood so perfectly it hurts to turn the last page. A riveting, atmospheric dream of a novel.” --Dominic Smith, author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos Winner of the 2020 Thomas Wolfe Prize Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction The Stewart sisters, pragmatic Lorena and chimerical Elise, are bound together not only by their isolation on the prairie of early 1900s Oklahoma, but also by their deep emotional reliance on each other. They’re all they’ve got . . . until Gus McQueen arrives in Lone Wolf. An inexperienced first-time teacher, Gus is challenged by the sisters’ wit and ingenuity. Then one impulsive decision and a cataclysmic blizzard trap Elise and her horse on the prairie—and the balance of everything is forever changed. With honesty, poetic intensity, and the deadpan humor of Paulette Jiles and Charles Portis, this novel tells the story of characters tested as much by life on the prairie as they are by their own churning hearts.

マイケル・パーカーが描くのは、1900年代初頭の過酷な大地を舞台にした魂の孤独と共鳴の物語です。本作の真髄は、広大な草原の静寂と、そこに生きる姉妹の激しく揺れ動く内面との鮮烈な対比にあります。対照的な二人の濃密な依存関係が、一人の男の登場と猛吹雪によって変容し、崩れゆく様は、美しくも残酷な詩情を湛えています。 特筆すべきは、乾いたユーモアと胸を抉るような詩的文体の融合です。過酷な自然がいかに人間の本性を暴き、絆を再定義するのか。歴史小説の枠を超え、静寂に潜む情熱を浮かび上がらせる筆致は圧巻です。読了後も吹雪の冷たさと登場人物の熱い鼓動が心に残り続ける、極上の文学体験がここにあります。