Year of the Drought

**"It was the month of June, in the year 1976. I was thirteen. It was the start of the summer holidays. It was the year of the drought."**

The Sutters have been farming on the Swiss plateau for generations, but now the household teeters on the brink of ruin. The crops are audibly roasting; the ventilators in the new hen-house are breaking down; even the family sheepdog, Sheriff, has taken to fainting in the unheard-of temperatures.

When a mysterious guest arrives at the farm, she quickly becomes a focus for dreams that have long been suppressed -- of freedom, art and sex. With only his injured dove and his comic books for company, thirteen-year-old Auguste observes helplessly as his family and his carefree childhood dissolve in the heat.

A tender, funny, elegiac novel about a lost rural way of life, *Year of the Drought* is a perfect companion to Robert Seethaler's *A Whole Life*. Taking place over one apocalyptic summer, it evokes several worlds -- of childhood, of traditional farming, of patriarchy -- at the very moment of their destruction.