Susan Elizabeth Elliott

Fall of '33 Susan Elizabeth Elliott

In OPHELIA'S GHOST (set in the American Southwest in 1958) Eva, an anthropologist in her mid-30s, disappears from her campsite in the Canyons of the Ancients. As local tracker Joe Hill searches for her, the story weaves together ancient Puebloan cultures, the Art of Memory, UFOs, Einstein's relativity, parallel universes, and a question Shakespearean scholars have debated since 1598-Can we know if we've truly seen a ghost? Now, 25 years earlier in FALL OF '33, from the window of a train, 12-year-old Eva looks back--observing, associating, remembering the fall of 1933, her last twenty days on her family's farm nestled in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. With her parents Doc and Leah, Eva rides the train west, to the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago, across the Plains, and on to their new home in Django, Colorado. With Billy, she finds her first young love, learns about her family's ghostly past, and discovers mysteries about herself. Grandfather Poppy prepares her for life-changing journeys as he relates the stories of her family's Indian and mystical ancestry in Virginia, dating back to Shakespeare's time and before. While inventing new games, exploring the woods around their farm, and joining family and friends in traditional social gatherings in 1933 rural Virginia, Eva's experiences unveil secrets of the past, present, and future. The darkness of this period--economic depression, drought, and burgeoning eugenics--is balanced by the shining potential of the human imagination.