Adult

The summer of 1876 was a key time period in the development of the mythology of the Old West. Many individuals who are considered legends by modern readers were involved in events that began their notoriety or turned out to be the most famous --- or infamous --- moments of their lives. Those individuals were Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok and Jesse James. THE SUMMER OF 1876 weaves together the timelines of the events that made these men legends to demonstrate the overlapping context of their stories and to illustrate the historical importance of that summer, all layered with highlights of significant milestones in 1876.

In the summer of 1855, Sarah Brinton abandons her husband and child to make the long and difficult journey from Rhode Island to Minnesota Territory, where she plans to reunite with a childhood friend. When she arrives at a small frontier post on the edge of the prairie, she quickly remarries and has two children. Anticipating unease and hardship at the Indian Agency, where her husband is the new resident physician, Sarah instead finds acceptance and kinship among the Sioux women at a nearby reservation. The Sioux tribes, however, are wary of the white settlers and resent the rampant theft of their land. During the Sioux Uprising of 1862, Sarah and her children are abducted by the Sioux, who protect her. But because she sympathizes with her captors, Sarah becomes an outcast to the white settlers.

When Joseph Lezza caught himself wishing necrotizing skin infections upon unhurried retirees in the self-checkout lane, and fantasized about loud-talking commuters making quick friends with the underside of a steamroller, he began to wonder if he was fine. Of all the things Joseph could have been, he certainly wasn't fine. The "fine" he'd adopted watching his father succumb to cancer was beginning to wane. It could no longer be used as a shield to melt the face off of anyone who dared to inquire. All the "fines" prophesized in every article, every book and every inspirational meme had lost their value. When Joseph realized he was facing a future that would find him standing over the carcass of an overzealous Costco greeter, one thing became clear: moving on required looking back.

People like Feeney Simms don’t commit suicide. Beautiful, charismatic, mother of two, wife to a handsome, successful husband, beloved by her friends --- this is not the typical picture of a tortured soul. But one summer night, Feeney drives to the beach and swallows a handful of pills. No note, no explanation, nothing. Just like that, she’s gone. Faced with this loss, Ali, Max and Liddy, Feeney’s closest friends, are left reeling, grappling with the devastating cocktail of grief, guilt and anger that’s left in the wake of a suicide. In a desperate attempt to avoid further loss, the three women make the unorthodox (and very Feeney-like) decision to hold their own funerals while they are still alive --- and the experience changes each of them in ways they couldn’t have imagined.

After decades as a long-haul trucker, Finn Murphy left the road and settled in Boulder County, Colorado. Before long he noticed that many of his neighbors were captivated by the prospect of vast riches in “the Hemp Space.” When hemp was legalized, after 80 years in federal exile, Colorado became the center of a hemp growing and processing boom. Figuring he’d harvest some of that easy money, Murphy bought a 36-acre farm. What could go wrong? Well, pretty much everything. ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH is the comic chronicle of a wild year as Murphy follows his Great American Dream, gradually losing his shirt but not his spirit.

In the face of a pandemic, an unprepared world scrambles to escape the mysterious disease causing sensory damage, nerve loss and, in most cases, death. Neffy, a disgraced and desperately indebted 27-year-old marine biologist, registers for an experimental vaccine trial in London --- perhaps humanity’s last hope for a cure. Though isolated from the chaos outside, she and the other volunteers cannot hide from the mistakes that led them there. As London descends into chaos outside the hospital windows, Neffy befriends Leon, who before the pandemic had been working on a controversial technology that allows users to revisit their memories. The lines between past, present and future begin to blur. Who can Neffy trust? Why can’t she forgive herself? How should she live, if she survives?

Tom Lowe designed and built his family’s dream home, working extra hours to pay off the adjustable-rate mortgage he took on the property, convinced he is making every sacrifice for the happiness of his wife and son. Until, shingling a roof in too-bright sunlight, he falls. In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, Tom slowly comes to realize that he can never work again. If he is not a working man, who is he? He is not, he believes, the kind of person who lives in subsidized housing, though that is where he has ended up. He is not the kind of person who hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud, together with neighbors he considers lowlifes, until he finds himself stealing his banker’s trash. Who is Tom Lowe, and who will he become?

1914, Fiji: Akal Singh would rather be anywhere but this tropical paradise. After a promising start to his police career in Hong Kong, Akal has been sent to Fiji as punishment for a humiliating professional mistake. Lonely and grumpy, Akal plods through his work and dreams of getting back to Hong Kong or his native India. When an indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation and Fiji’s newspapers scream “kidnapping,” the inspector-general reluctantly assigns Akal the case. Akal, eager to achieve redemption, agrees --- but soon finds himself far more invested than he ever could have expected. Not only is he now investigating a disappearance, he is confronting the brutal realities of the indentured workers’ existence and the racism of the British colonizers in Fiji.

Massachusetts, 1897: Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. As a search team dredges the pond where Bertha might have drowned, her panicked father and sister arrive desperate to find some clue to her fate or state of mind. Bertha’s best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully tight-lipped, inciting the suspicions of Bertha’s family, her classmates, and the private investigator hired by the Mellish family doctor. As secrets from Agnes’ and Bertha’s lives come to light, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for Bertha. Where did Bertha go? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?

Malcolm Hill, a Black 18-year-old voting rights worker, is stopped by a white sheriff’s deputy on a dark country road in rural Georgia. His single mother, Allie, America’s leading voting rights advocate, restlessly awaits his return before police inform her that Malcolm has been arrested for murder. In Washington, D.C., the rising, young white congressman Chase Brevard of Massachusetts is watching the morning news with his girlfriend, only to find his life transformed in a single moment by the appearance of Malcolm’s photograph. Suddenly all three are enveloped in a media firestorm that threatens their lives --- especially Malcolm’s.