Show Me Good Land - Hardcover

"When the court-appointed lawyer left, and Odie was led back to his cell, he leaned his thick shoulders against the concrete wall and stretched his legs on the wool-covered cot. His cell was tiny, but there was a narrow Plexiglas window behind the toilet, and Odie watched the colors through the scratched plastic. It was twilight, and the setting sun cast dull yellow shadows on the gray walls. His mother had been dead all day."

Set in fictional Fort Angus, Maine, "Show Me Good Land" tells the story of a small rural town struggling with poverty, loss, and acceptance after decades of prosperity. Loosely linked through the murder of Odie Hollander's mother, its characters must navigate the ambiguous moral landscape of a decaying community. It is a moving, sometimes melancholy, often funny novel about family, community, loss, redemption, and coming home. The pleasure lies in exploring the personalities of the characters, none of whom are all good or all bad, and eventually deciding where the reader's own moral lines are drawn.

Not since Carolyn Chute's "The Beans of Egypt, Maine," has a cast of characters been so shocking, beautifully rendered, and ultimately likeable.

"..rich sadness of Shonna Humphrey's characters, her haunting portrait of a bewildered, isolated community, reminded me powerfully of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio." -Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Empire Falls

"a murder mystery, a gentle romance, a wry, ironic comedy...a love letter to Aroostook County, Maine, its potato farmers and meth addicts...A remarkable debut...Spellbinding." -Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She's Not There

"..a true and utterly distinctive American voice, full of the grit and texture of place, compassion and authenticity.  Every page feels real."
--Joyce Maynard, author of The Good Daughters and At Home in the World