The Desert Between Us

A Novel

By: Phyllis Barber

Narrated by: Phyllis Barber

The 2020 Reading the West Book Awards, Longlist for Fiction

A 2020 Association for Morman Letters finalist, Fiction

The Desert Between Us is a sweeping, multilayered novel based on the US government’s decision to open more routes to California during the Gold Rush. To help navigate this waterless, largely unexplored territory, the War Department imported 75 camels from the Middle East to help traverse the brutal terrain that was murderous on other livestock.

Geoffrey Scott, one of the roadbuilders, decides to venture north to discover new opportunities in the opening of the American West when he - and the camels - are no longer needed. Geoffrey arrives in St. Thomas, Nevada, a polygamous settlement caught up in territorial fights over boundaries and new taxation. There, he falls in love with Sophia Hughes, a hatmaker obsessed with beauty and the third wife of a polygamist. Geoffrey believes Sophia wants to be free of polygamy and go away with him to a better life, but Sophia’s motivations are not so easily understood. She had become committed to Mormon beliefs in England and had moved to Utah Territory to assuage her spiritual needs.

The death of Sophia’s child and her illicit relationship with Geoffrey generate a complex nexus where her new love for Geoffrey competes with societal expectations and a rugged West seeking domesticity. When faced with the opportunity to move away from her polygamist husband and her tumultuous life in St. Thomas, Sophia becomes tormented by a life-changing decision she must face alone.

©2020 Phyllis Barber (P)2021 University of Nevada Press

Critic reviews

"Barber’s exquisite prose captures the beauty and the grandeur of the arid red rock country as well as Sophia’s longing for human connection and her struggle with duty and desire. Geoffrey Scott reminds her of how love can change a person and her world, and the camel takes it all in, placidly watching - as immovable as the desert." (Michele Morris, author of The Cowboy Life)

Poor narration

Repetition, errors. Not well read. Story’s not as poor as narration. And that’s the truth.