Description

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WINNER OF THE WISCONSIN WRITERS: EDNA FERBER FICTION BOOK AWARD!

In her debut novel, Carol Dunbar draws from her own lived experiences, vividly describing the wonder and harshness of life off the grid. Told over the course of a year, The Net Beneath Us is a lyrical exploration of loss, marriage, parenthood, and self-reliance; a tale of how the natural world—without and within us—offers us healing, if we can learn where to look.

“Dunbar delivers both a tumble through the shifting light of grief, and a forgiving forest floor on which to land.”
—Leif Enger, New York Times bestselling author of Peace Like a River and Virgil Wander

He promised her he would never let go. She’s willing to risk everything to hold on.

In the aftermath of her husband’s logging accident, Elsa has more questions than answers about how to carry on while caring for their two small children in the unfinished house he was building for them in the woods of rural Wisconsin. To cope with the challenges of winter and the near-daily miscommunications from her in-laws, she forges her own relationship with the land, learning from and taking comfort in the trees her husband had so loved. If she wants to stay in their home, she must discover her own capabilities, and accept help from the people and places she least expects.

About the Author

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CAROL DUNBAR is the author of the critically acclaimed novels, The Net Beneath Us—winner of the Wisconsin Writers: Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, and A Winter's Rime. She is a former actor, playwright, and coloratura soprano who left her life in the city to move off the grid. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The South Carolina Review, Midwestern Gothic, and on Wisconsin Public Radio. She writes from a solar-powered office on the second floor of a water tower in northern Wisconsin, where she lives in a house in the woods with her husband, two kids, and a Great Pyrenees Mountain Dog.