Slackwater

Cora Tipton comes back to Cane Hollow as a government draftsman to map the taking line of a dam. Red-banded stakes already stand at one thousand and sixty-eight feet. Her father is the last name above the line that has not signed.

Slackwater is an original novel about a surveyor sent home to drown her own valley on paper. In the autumn before the gates close, Cora Tipton drives a Model A up a ruined road into Cane Hollow with a transit on the seat and a field book she trusts more than her eyes. The Pigeonroost is already backing up behind the dam. The store is dying. The cemetery has to be platted before the graves can be moved. Neighbors who remember her as Verlie's girl watch her paint the red. The novel follows the work of measurement, the family that will not sign, and the slackwater that turns a river into a lake, until the line Cora inked on linen becomes the shore.