Bookshelf

Alumni and faculty members who would like to have their books considered for this listing should contact Stacey Himmelberger, editor of Hamilton magazine. This list, which dates back to 2018, is updated periodically with books appearing alphabetically on the date of entry.

Yet in the Land of the Living by Nancy Avery Dafoe K’74

May 22, 2025

Tags Kirkland College Alumna

(Wings ePress, 2024).

The latest work from Dafoe explores Grace Storey’s deep dive into dual mysteries about her great-great-grandfather and a contemporary soldier injured in Iraq. Grace’s search arises both out of empathy and an attempt to come to terms with her own devastating losses.

According to the publisher, “The novel is structured around Grace’s interpretation of her ancestor’s Civil War letters to his waiting wife in order to find the ‘truth’ of not only the past, but in the meaning of life and death. Thematically about the journeys we take in order to deal with suffering and tragedies, the novel offers alternative versions of the climatic events as Grace continues to recast meaning and herself, gaining strength in the search.”