Midwest Connections: The Plain Sense of Things

From the Midwest Booksellers Association, a recent Midwest Connections pick. Under this marketing program, the association and member stores promote booksellers' handselling favorites that have a strong Midwest regional appeal:

The Plain Sense of Things by Pamela Carter Joern (Bison Books, $18.95, 9780803216198/080321619X). Tripp Ryder of Carleton College Bookstore in Northfield, Minn., said, "The clarity and honesty of Joern's prose impart a quiet intensity to this novel about three generations of a family enduring a hardscrabble existence in western Nebraska. Shaped by place and by each other, strong, flawed characters struggle through love and pain to create rich and dignified lives well worthy of our attention."