Publisher's Synopsis
Whispered Secrets Whispered Prayers is a gritty, marrow-deep story of one of the families of Germans from Russia who settled on the American Prairie. When they are unwittingly ensnared in a web of calamity and ruin, only six-year-old Annie, possesses the innocent powers of insight, imagination and compassion that might save them from themselves. She perceives the desolate wind-flattened prairie as never ending death and rebirth, peopled with creatures of mythical dimensions. Here, the simple words and sentiments of common people belie the enormity and danger of human passions and their twisted and hidden source. Whispered Secrets Whispered Prayers is a psychological, character-driven story in the tradition of Kent Haruf's Plains Song. It also recalls the terse, tense drama of O.E. Rolvaag's classic Giants in the Earth where the vast dome of ever-changing sky shifts with the narrative from dreamy solitude to churning conflict. The author, Donna Mack, is a National Endowment for the Arts award winner with a MFA from University of Alaska, Anchorage. At age 70 this is her first novel.
