Better Days

Helen and Cal Earlywine, in their early ’70s, are the last of generations to work their rural Iowa farm. Their beloved son Tom was to have carried on the tradition, but, twenty-six years ago at age twenty, he met a sudden death. Now, when much more of life lies behind them than in front of them, Helen and Cal must face the reverberations of Tom’s death and the somehow surprising, though always inevitable, sabotage of old age—Cal’s deteriorating hip, Helen’s sister’s increasing dementia. Enter Nancy Bannister, relentless town booster and manipulator of a hapless town council. Nancy is determined to plant an income-producing corn maze park on the field where Tom died. Her maneuverings and machinations force Helen and Cal to rethink the future that lies before them.

In addition to Better Days, Kate Kasten is the author of the novels, The De-Conversion of Kit Lamb and Ten Small Beds as well as a book of fairy tales for adults, Wildwood: Fairy Tales and Fables Re-imagined. Her short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, American Literary Review, Northwest Review, The Madison Review and two fiction anthologies, Side Show and Paraspheres. With Sandra de Helen, Kasten co-wrote a musical satire of the Nancy Drew mystery genre, The Clue in the Old Birdbath, which has been produced by theatre companies in Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland. Kasten lives and writes in Iowa City, Iowa, where she teaches English as a Second Language. More information about Kasten's work can be found at www.katekasten.com.