Introduction

Narrated in part by a ghost, when the dust finally settles is a novel focused on land, loyalty and racial politics in the 1968 South. Mawatuck County (also the setting for Meads’s The Invented Life of Kitty Duncan) is a place where the present continually collides with the past, a fact underscored by one unseasonably hot, dry week in May. Mabel Stallings is determined to make her grandchild love the family farm. Clarence Carter is determined to escape paying taxes by “playing” crazy. Harrison Doxey, a black student in a white majority high school, is determined to dance and drink at The Lido, a whites-only dance hall at the beach. “When anyone asks if Southern Literature has a future in our internet, iPhone, jet-lagged, speed-of-light world, I point them to Kat Meads. Simply put, you must read Kat Meads.”—Jason Sanford, Founding Editor, storySouth

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Excerpt

Clarence Carter

You think the dead don't hear and see—backwards, forwards, all at once, piecemeal, big picture, best and worst?
Surprises coming your way, my friend, that much I guarantee.
You go by the majority, fearing death turns out to be a big chunk of what living is, people more or less sniffing the stench of end before dropping a molar, fretting in advance about the where, when, how soon, how hard, who'll care, who won't. Another example, if you're looking, how Clarence Carter skirted the average, plowed his own row so to speak, disinclined to anguish over either side of the great divide. A gift for the carefree, you might call it, though folks in Mawatuck did and do tag it something different. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1) What do Clarence, Mabel and Harrison share in common?
2) Which character do you feel more sympathy for: Lucian Carter or Nell Stallings? Why?
3) How does Mawatuck, the place, affect the actions of Clarence Carter? The actions of Harrison Doxey?
4) Jocelyn McPherson is “with” Harrison even when she isn’t. How does she help or hinder Harrison to become the person he wants to be?
5) Describe Nell and Lucian’s relationship. How is it different from other relationships in the novel?
6) In the standoff in Mrs. Avery’s classroom, what is at stake? Which characters have the most to gain?
7) The older generation of Mawatuck has very specific expectations of the younger generation. Describe those expectations. Are any of those expectations justified?
8) What is Enon Halston’s role in the novel?
9) Do you agree with Mabel’s decision to give Nell her inheritance early? How else might Mabel have protected the family farm?
10) What does Clarence Carter realize as a dead man that he didn’t know alive?
11) The novel takes place during one unseasonably hot, dry week in May. Why else is the novel titled when the dust finally settles?
12) “Surprises coming your way, my friend,” Clarence Carter says at the beginning of the novel. What surprised you about Mawatuck County, its residents or the events that occurred over the course of the novel?

Weblinks

»	Author Kat Meads' web site
»	Publisher's Book Info

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