Tamarack River Ghost: A Novel - Hardcover

Apps, Jerry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0299288803 ISBN 13: 9780299288808

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012

Synopsis

When journalist Josh Wittmore moves from the Illinois bureau of Farm Country News to the newspaper’s national office in Wisconsin, he encounters the biggest story of his young career—just as the paper’s finances may lead to its closure.
    Josh’s big story is that a corporation that plans to establish an enormous hog farm has bought a lot of land along the Tamarack River in bucolic Ames County. Some of the local residents and officials are excited about the jobs and tax revenues that the big farm will bring, while others worry about truck traffic, porcine aromas, and manure runoff polluting the river. And how would the arrival of a large agribusiness affect life and traditions in this tightly knit rural community of family farmers? Josh strives to provide impartial agricultural reporting, even as his newspaper is replaced by a new Internet-only version owned by a former New York investment banker. And it seems that there may be another force in play: the vengeful ghost of a drowned logger who locals say haunts the valley of the Tamarack River.

About this title

About the Author:

Jerry Apps was born and raised on a Wisconsin farm. A former agricultural extension agent, he is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His other novels in the Ames County series are The Travels of Increase Joseph, In a Pickle, Blue Shadows Farm, and Cranberry Red. His many nonfiction books include Garden Wisdom, Barns of Wisconsin, Breweries of Wisconsin, Every Farm Tells a Story, Old Farm, and One-Room Country Schools. Apps received the 2007 Major Achievement Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers and the 2010 Distinguished Service Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

From Booklist:

As Apps continues the Ames County series (Cranberry Red, 2010), journalist Josh Wittmore, fresh off his confrontational assignment to expose feedlot abuses in central Missouri, returns to his Wisconsin home town in Ames County, where things along the usually tranquil Tamarack River are about to liven up. Rumor has it that Nathan West Industries plans to install its largest hog-processing plant on the abandoned golf course at river’s edge. It will be Josh’s job to cover the story and its impact on this rural Eden. He may not, however, have a place to write about what he finds. The digital age is about to wrest the venerated Farm Country News from its old-school owner and place it into the hands of a ruthless businessman who cares more about ad revenues than skilled reportage. Factor in a burgeoning love interest, the by-the-book county conservation warden, and the occasional sighting of the legendary Tamarack River Ghost, and you have a masterfully crafted story that vibrantly captures weighty issues of environmental protection, family farming, and contemporary communications. --Carol Haggas

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0299288803
• ISBN 13: 9780299288808
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 286