The Guidebook of False Roads

Gothenburg, 1871. Anders and Marta Vesterlund gather their four children and a sack of winter rye seed, and join nine Swedish households bound for Nebraska on the promises of a printed emigrant’s guidebook — cheap land, reliable water, and a clear road west.

The road has other plans. Across the Atlantic, through rail transfers and wagon yards, every stage of the journey converts the guidebook’s promises into charges, debts, and losses. When the printed directions disagree with the ground itself, the party learns that the book they trusted may be something worse than mistaken.

At Harrow Crossing, the only dependable spring stands behind a company gate, and Gideon Harrow holds the land, the water, and the winter stores. Elin Vesterlund, observant and exacting, refuses to let necessity disguise coercion. With Sigrid Dahl, interpreter and record keeper, she begins keeping a private account of everything the official story leaves out.

As the first Nebraska winter closes in, a marriage bargain offers the settlers survival at a price — and Elin must decide what can be written into terms, and what must be stitched into a record no one else can read.