A Million Miles from Yesterday

Hank Cleary the town doctor in Alma Wisconsin failed his wife when she died. In spring 1999 he struggles to climb back into life.A Chicago expatriate he is challenged by other migrants: the Chicana owner of Livy's Bar and Café an old man who loves jazz a Navajo family transplanted from the Southwest a strange woman who rarely speaks a drifting Menominee and the iconoclastic Bookstore Ladies. Disparate cultures rub up against each other.When a cataclysmic fire engulfs the Alma recycling plant in mid-summer Hank cannot resuscitate Silent Margaret and he relives his despair at being unable to save his wife. At the turn of the millennium healing comes in unexpected ways.