The Land of the Living

This sequel to Sally Stockley Johnson’s first novel, After Yesterday, opens shortly after the stock market crash in 1929 as Ella Wood is dealing with the aftermath of the murder of her husband, Daniel, and the unfolding of the Great Depression in rural Myrna, Arkansas.

While mourning Daniel’s death, Ella does her best to take care of her two daughters and cope with her young son who is bitter and confused about the murder of his father. She turns to her Episcopal priest, Father Banks, for help with Danny, but it is another man of the cloth, Jack MacLean, the pastor of the local Presbyterian church, who befriends the boy and helps him work through his anger. Ella is put off by Jack’s lack of formality, but she is grateful for his help with her son.

Jack is dealing with his own problems, though. His own young daughter had died during a flu epidemic not long before he accepted the call to the church in Myrna. His wife blamed him for their daughter’s death because he’d been at the bedside of another parishioner instead of with them when she died. As a result, his wife had refused to move to Myrna and take up her role as a young minister’s wife. After two years, she sends word she’s fallen in love with another man and is leaving Jack. This is not what his church wants to hear, and they decide to let him go.

With the economy in shambles, Ella and Jack are both eventually recruited to work as teachers at the local high school. Her old attitudes about the minister resurface – until they discover their mutual desire to try new ways to engage their students in dry old subjects like English and history. From this bumpy start, they begin a friendship that flowers into love and a new lease on life in the Land of the Living.