Exhalation
Exhalation is the fourth book in the Nandria series.It asks a question that 1940s America was not ready to answer.
Within the shadow of a lynching tree, a field hand and his small son stand up against everything their world has told them to accept. Set in rural Missouri in the 1940s, Exhalation is the fourth novel in the Nandria Series — and perhaps the most unflinching.
The story questions a long-held and quietly dangerous assumption: that the violence of a lynching harms only its victims. MaryJane Nordgren follows what happens to the white community that witnesses it, participates in it, and then goes home to Sunday dinner. The silence that follows. The damage passed down.
In the tradition of the Nandria Series, this is a story about ordinary people in impossible moments — and the small, stubborn acts of courage that either redeem a community or condemn it.
"Some very beautiful and naturalistic writing. Not only do you have strong central characters, but you have also given a real richness and context to small characters."
— Kay Snow Award Judge
