“A stirring tale of the Great Depression on Canada’s Alberta prairie. Readers will be moved.” — Publishers Weekly
One of the CBC’s Canadian Fiction Books to Read in Fall 2024

As the Great Depression winds down and war in Europe looms, the small Prairie community of Grayley is all but abandoned. After a decade of dust and drought, few families remain. With growing season approaching, Abel Dodds and the Wisharts decide to plant their crops once again — their last chance to make a living on their debt-burdened farms. But when they learn of an impending royal visit, tensions ignite between the neighbours.

Deeply rooted in the landscape of the Prairies and laced with contemporary concerns, This Bright Dust deftly explores the relationship between people and the land they inhabit. In a richly layered novel, Berkhout tells a moving tale of promise and disillusionment, of near disaster and the cultivation of joy.

Nina Berkhout is the author of three novels, most recently Why Birds Sing, which was described as a “must read” by the Globe and Mail and “not to be missed” by the Ottawa Citizen, a Best Book of the Year (Canada) by Audible, and a Great Group Reads selection by the Women’s National Book Association (USA). Her young adult novel The Mosaic was nominated for the White Pine Award and the Ottawa Book Awards and named an Indigo Best Teen Book, and her novel The Gallery of Lost Species was named an Indigo and Kobo Best Book and a Harper’s Bazaar Hottest Breakout Novel. Berkhout is also the author of five poetry collections, including Elseworlds, which won the Archibald Lampman Award. A recent finalist for the Alberta Magazine Awards, her poems have been featured in publications across Canada including Best Canadian Poetry 2024. Originally from Calgary, she lives in Ottawa. This Bright Dust is Berkhout’s fourth novel.

Nina Berkhout's profile page

“In This Bright Dust, Nina Berkhout’s fading town of Grayley has been devastated by the Great Depression. Even for its loyal residents — skinny, haggard, and dwindling in number — it’s a harsh place of droughts and blizzards, where grasshoppers chew through the curtains and the walls are dismantled for fuel. And yet! What a gentle, loving story this is, gracefully told, with a keen understanding of an earlier time. When the dust storm settles, you never know what you might find among the wild roses.”

Kristen den Hartog, author of <i>And Me Among Them</i>

“Nina Berkhout writes with beautiful clarity of the Dustbowl Thirties in this haunting tale of two families grappling with the Prairie land they live on and love. In its attention to the earth and more-than-human world, as well as questions of how we care for each other amid potential calamity, the novel gains an eerily contemporary resonance. I was immersed.”

Catherine Bush, author of <i>Blaze Island</i>

“As the royals’ arrival looms, Berkhout builds tension out of Abel’s outrage and Una’s need for hope. Along the way, she portrays the beauty of flowering wheat fields and the danger of dust storms in stark prose, and she grounds the narrative in themes of neighborliness and self-sacrifice. Readers will be moved.”

<i>Publisher’s Weekly</i>

“To love and be fearless. This Bright Dust is the story of hope, defiant in a time of drought and impending war. A textured and beautifully written tale of lives swept up by the dust storms and winter blizzards of history, it will haunt readers long after they turn the last page.”

Will Ferguson, author of <i>419</i>

“Nina Berkhout has constructed a perfect pas de deux, where the characters dance deftly around the words they cannot bring themselves to say. This Bright Dust, the town of Grayley, and its remaining residents will stay with you long after you finish this book.”

Russell Wangersky, author of <i>The Path of Most of Resistance</i>