Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A story of family and the American Mid West
Little Faith
What you need to know before your trail
Lyle and his wife, Peg, are living a mostly contented life in rural Wisconsin. Their daughter, Shiloh, after some troubled years has finally come home, with their five-year-old grandson, Isaac. But while away, Shiloh became deeply involved with the pastor of an extremist church in a nearby town, who is convinced that Isaac has the ability to heal the sick. Struggling with his own faith, and with his growing hostility towards the pastor, Lyle faces the very real threat of losing his daughter and beloved grandson once again.
Travel Guide
La Coulee/La Crosse region of Wisconsin
Travel to rural Wisconsin BookTrail style
A rural landscape of faith, hope and religion
The mum in this novel has moved back from the Twin cities bringing her son with her. The grandparents in this small and unnamed Wisconsin town. Life here is all about the land and your faith, but the grandparents worry that their grandson is being fundamentally changed by his mother’s beliefs.
People and places are exquisitely drawn:
Lyle is ”patient as a dusty cabinet clock in a dining room corner.”
“He cared not for politics; he’d lived long enough to watch every politician he once admired become an abject disappointment, if not a liar.”
Faith and the idea of a new church:
The grandparents of the novel have lost their faith following a tragedy so their daughter joining a new church is strange to them:
‘Holy-Rollers I was maybe prepared for. But it seems our daughter has joined a cult.’
“Lyle held Peg’s hand even as he could hear her heart breaking, the way a cracked mirror falls in sharp shards, not all at once, but in that slow avalanche of fractures, some pieces clinging to the frame even as the center has fallen away, given up.”
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Little Faith
Destination/location: Wisconsin Author/guide: Nickolas Butler Departure Time: 2000s
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