Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the woostify domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/latestwordpress/lonestar.a1professionals.net_public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131
{"id":1625,"date":"2019-06-02T09:45:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T09:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2019-06-02T09:49:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T09:49:15","slug":"lone-star-review-prairie-fever-michael-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=1625&lang=ar","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Review: PRAIRIE FEVER by Michael Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin’s Si Dunn reviews Prairie Fever<\/em>, literary historical fiction, by Austin’s Michael Parker.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Austin writer Michael Parker<\/span><\/a><\/strong>\u2019s eloquent new novel, Prairie Fever<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/strong>, examines how the strong bond between two teen sisters falls apart after they are drawn to their new schoolteacher and both have relationships with him. Yet, following this rift, the sisters remain distantly connected through their prairie roots, even after each has settled in separate places, married, and had children.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Starting out in rural Oklahoma in the early 1900s, Parker\u2019s ninth book examines life, love, gossip, and news through the eyes of Elise Stewart and her slightly older sister, Lorena Stewart, who live with their parents on a 160-acre cotton farm in a tiny community named Lone Wolf.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The sisters initially are so close, physically and emotionally, that they ride the same horse four miles to school each day, pinned together in a big blanket that shields them from some of the snow and wind. To entertain each other, they quote stories they have memorized while reading their county newspaper. (Interestingly, the author uses actual brief newspaper reports from West Texas and western Oklahoma, published between 1900 and 1920, in this novel.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At school, both sisters become attracted to Gus McQueen, eighteen, who is just out of high school. His main qualifications as a teacher are that he knows how to memorize interesting things and repeat them. He does not yet know how to explain their significance, nor how to instruct students in \u201chow one ought to go about living one\u2019s life.\u201d This is because, he admits to himself, he has grown up understanding \u201cnext to nothing.\u201d But he realizes he has begun to notice the Stewart sisters.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s title carries multiple meanings. Elise and Lorena had two young brothers who died of \u201cprairie fever,\u201d likely typhoid. But Elise loves the prairie that surrounds them: \u201cIt is the opposite for me of what it was for my poor dead brothers and my addled mother. . . . It is not death but life. I love the wind and the way it makes everything slap and creak and whistle.<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For Lorena, meanwhile, the point of life is knowing your limitations. This belief is magnified after Elise goes off on her own in a blizzard, gets lost, and Lorena saves her life, only to have Gus McQueen turn away from her. Lorena dreams of living in Chicago, amid \u201cglamour and city lights.\u201d Yet, she cannot shake free of her prairie past, nor her admiration for \u201cthe sort of plainspoken, honest, heartfelt people around whom I was raised.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With six other novels and three short story collections to his credit, the author has shown readers that he is a masterful storyteller with a knack for creating memorable characters, intriguing situations, and revealing dialogue and descriptions. When he is not in Austin, Michael Parker taught for thirty years in the MFA writing program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is now on the faculty of the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. He also writes nonfiction and has appeared in a diverse array of publications ranging from the Washington Post<\/em> to Runner\u2019s World<\/em>. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In Prairie Fever<\/em>, there is humor as well as danger, love as well as longing, and reconciliation as well as lingering spite. It\u2019s splendid reading.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"