The Trouble Up North

(Paperback, Large Print Edition)

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Description

An atmospheric, haunting novel about a family of bootleggers, their troubled history, and the land that binds them.

The Sawbrooks have lived on prime real estate on the lakes of Michigan since before there was prime real estate. A family of smugglers and bootleggers, every man, woman, and child in each generation has been taught to navigate the nooks and crannies of the rivers and highways that flow in and out of Canada. The hidden routes are the family's legacy.

But today, the Sawbrooks are deeply fractured, and the money that's sustained the family is running out. Edward, the Sawbrook patriarch, is dying from cancer, and his wife, Rhoda, is bitterly disappointed in her three adult children. The eldest daughter, Lucy, is now a park ranger, working to federally protect the land against her mothers will; the middle son, Buckner, hasnt been the same since he came back from the army suffering from alcoholism; and the youngest daughter, Jewell, is wasting her potential as a card player and bartender.

When Jewell is asked to commit a crime for a major insurance payout, she agrees, eager for the cash, but too late, she realizes that that the boat she torched wasn't empty...

Together, the Sawbrooks will have to contend with the old, familial ways and the new, shifting world, and face each otherand their pain-filled pastto smuggle one more thing through and out of their land to safety.

Reviews

"Mulhauser peppers the action with jaw-dropping twists, but his real strength is in constructing three-dimensional characters whose transgressions feel both plausible and shocking. Readers wont be able to put this down."Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Travis Mulhauser was born and raised in Northern Michigan. His novel, Sweetgirl (Ecco/Harper Collins), was listed for The Center for Fictions First Novel Prize, an Indie Next Pick, and named one of Ploughshares Best Books of the New Year. He is also the author of Greetings from Cutler County: A Novella and Stories. Travis received his MFA in Fiction from UNC-Greensboro and is also a proud graduate of North Central Michigan College and Central Michigan University.