by M. Stillman (Author)
In the spring of 1932, the U.S. is in drought and depression. With little confidence in the banking system, there is renewed interest in gold, and a resurgence in mining. Unlike the mules and wagons of previous gold rushes, the availability of automobiles and trucks brings a mobile group of adventurers to the mountains and deserts of California.
Captain Joe Haberman, 42, a disabled veteran of the Great War, is in the Mojave on a doctor's suggestion, trying to distance himself from a battle with a German submarine and a murky leviathan. 27-year-old William Quine, a peacetime Navy veteran, has returned to his oasis origins to reconnect with the Native American cultures that comprise half his heritage. Leif "Stan" Stanicek, 23, was an engineering student in Chicago when his schooling was interrupted and he took to the road. The youngest of the crew, 20-year-old Jem Parker, had been a budding farmer in Texas, but unproductive land, drought, and bank failure bring him to other fields.
IN THE JOSHUA SEA takes place in areas that are now, almost a century later, part of Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave Trails National Monument, and in nearby towns like Twentynine Palms and Indio. Third-person viewpoints of multiple characters, including the flora and fauna of the desert, narrate this fully immersive novel.