Review: Pale Harvest

A Landscape of Lust of Lies
Review: Pale Harvest

Kevin Coopersmith

Pale Harvest
Braden Hepner
Fiction
Torrey House Press, pp. 366
Paperback Cost: $17.00

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Before the return of Rebekah Rainsford, Jack Selvedge’s world is as small as it is consistent. Jack has known little of the world but the hard hours and hopeless returns of his life as a dairy farmer on his grandfather’s farm; a craft that is dying along with Juniper Scrag, his time-forgotten hometown in the shadows of the Salt Lakes. Jack is a man of the land, dedicated to his dreams of inheriting the farm and carrying on his grandfather’s legacy of labor and sacrifice.

This theme of life and land presents itself throughout Braden Hepner’s debut novel. As time passes and generations turn over, the land that makes up the small, aging town of Juniper Scrag proves itself to be as present a character in the narrative as Blair Selvedge: Jack’s work-wrought grandfather. While life in Juniper Scrag has held steady in its decay, the effect of time begins to unravel, taking its toll on the land and its citizens.

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