Catalog · No. S01 of 9
Layout specimen. This title is not on the publishing record, has no ISBN, and is not offered for rights or sale.
No. S01
The Section Line
John Q. Public
Plate
Layout sample
The Section Line
A survey is a story that pretends it is only a measurement.
Novel · Civic fiction · Place writing
Not on the record · layout specimen
The book
When his uncle dies, Tom Harlan inherits a quarter-section and a tin box of field notes. The fence and the deed have not agreed since the Dust Bowl. The neighbors have been watering the disputed strip for two generations and do not intend to start agreeing now.
Tom was a surveyor before he was a nephew. He can prove the line. Proving it would move a well, a grave, and a handshake his uncle spent a life not breaking.
Who is in it
Spoiler-safe · drawn from the public pages
Tom Harlan
The nephew with the instrument
Knows how to be right in public and is trying to learn what that costs in a county where people stay.
Inez Cobb
The neighbor on the strip
Has watered the disputed ground since she was sixteen. Keeps the well log in a feed-store notebook.
section line (n.)
The boundary of a square mile, as the survey laid it down. Not always where the fence went up.