The Girls in the Stilt House

Set in the early 1920s, Mustian’s remarkable debut focuses on two teenage girls, one white, the other Black, in Mississippi’s Natchez Trace. Ada Morgan’s trapper father makes most of his money stealing pelts from others’ traps and barely puts food on the table; Matilda Patterson is the daughter of a sharecropper who dreams of farming his own plot. Both fathers are under the thumb of a local bootlegger, who puts their families at risk. Ada runs away, following a carnival musician to Louisiana, but returns home after he leaves her. Matilda, who writes newspaper articles about prejudice and poverty in the Deep South under a pseudonym, dreams of joining a friend who lives in Ohio. Brought together by a shocking twist of fate, the girls form an uneasy alliance to survive amid growing racial tension and violence in the Trace. Authentic characters complement the vivid setting—readers will feel the weight of the Trace’s humidity—in this nearly flawless tale of loss, perseverance, and redemption. Agent: Peter Steinberg, Foundry Literary + Media. (Apr.)