Chorus of Crows

When retired farmer Oren Walton receives an offer for a romantic hook-up in his rusty R.V., he embarks on a summer-long respite from the blight of loneliness and the progression of his Parkinson’s. Finally, Oren feels happy. But there’s a problem: Oren’s daughter, Sedona, thinks he hallucinated the whole affair.

Strange happenings percolate on the farm. Oren battles trickster crows and sleepwalks into deadly farm machinery mishaps. Visitors arrive like an infestation of corn smut, and a miracle of birth occurs on the porch, both foul and fabulously freaky. Life on the farm has always been weirder than a lutefisk supper since the abrupt death of Oren’s wife and the explosive incident at the spot behind the barn. When puzzling things happen to Sedona, too, the mystery grows.

Sedona discovers her dead mother’s diaries and finds comfort in her mother’s words. Still, they don’t insulate her from the dangers of living with her dad’s increasingly malevolent delusions. Lavinia, Oren’s annoyingly real lady friend, thinks Oren is off his rocker. And Jeb—Sedona’s summer romance—is sure of it. Only one thing is certain: no one will survive the pestilence at the farm unless an answer from the stars can solve the mystery of the spot.