The Grand Promise by Rebekah Anderson
The Grand Promise takes us back to the 1930s New Deal public works program. An Eastern Washington town is uprooted and a family grapples with personal and financial dilemmas. A father resists inevitable change and enters into a fierce conflict with his son. The historic construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, a massive project destined to bring prosperity to the Pacific Northwest, will also destroy the family's home and their town, but it will change the lives of their community and the lives of indigenous people who have sustained themselves on the Columbia River for generations.
“The Grand Promise is more than a gripping debut from a writer of grand promise. Anderson has given us a poignant exploration of the costs and benefits of progress that is at once hopeful and redemptive. A great addition to the northwest canon.” — Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here and Small World
“Rebekah Anderson’s wonderful debut novel The Grand Promise is a roiling, remarkably ambitious saga exploring the lives of a complex array of characters forever altered by the construction of the largest dam in North America—the Grand Coulee on the Columbia River. Deeply researched, the book evokes with remarkable specificity these ordinary and extraordinary people living in rural Washington in the late 1930s, as they’re pushed and pulled by this outrageously ambitious project, their lives swept up and overturned by the forces of history.”
— Peter Mountford, author of A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism
“One of the dominant stories of the American west during the first half of the 20th century was the story of water. Rebekah Anderson’s riveting debut, The Grand Promise, perfectly captures the crackling energy of that time, delivering the gravity and complexity of the building of the Grand Coulee dam, telling a story both intimate and epic, and revealing the beating heart of those who benefitted and were harmed by the project. Informative yet compelling, educational but deeply moving, this fantastic novel represents the best of what historical fiction can do.” — Alan Heathcock, author of VOLT
“Rebekah Anderson imagines the repercussions of building the Grand Coulee Dam for riverside communities riven by prejudice, need and hope. To make it through The Great Depression, her characters destroy, scavenge and rebuild to salvage their homes and self-images. A most American story of survival and self-advancement in the name of questionable progress, The Grand Promise posits questions about prosperity whose answers are playing out in real time. Amidst shanty towns of a Pacific Northwest more akin to modern times than most people want to believe, each generation raises the stakes for the next.”
— Kristen Millares Young, author of Subduction and Good Mother
“In her engrossing debut novel, The Grand Promise, Rebekah Anderson deftly weaves an intimate family story of conflict and redemption into a sweeping historical narrative bringing to life one of the most important stories of the 20th Century American West–the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.”
— Shawn Vestal, author of Daredevils and Godforsaken Idaho