David Dunne: A Romance of the Middle West

A freckle-faced boy in overalls and a woman's shirtwaist, wandering dusty roads between farms in the early 20th-century Midwest, searching for ice cream and something like love. David Dunne's mother is dead, and at ten years old he already carries the weight of adult responsibilities on his thin shoulders. Yet he still yearns for education, still craves the simple sweetness of Miss M'ri Brumble's kitchen, still believes the world might offer him something beyond hardship. When Joe Forbes returns to settle his father's estate, a quiet mentorship begins to shape David's trajectory. This is not a story of dramatic events but of small moments: a child's resilience in the face of loss, the warmth found in small-town corners, the way community can become family when blood fails. Maniates writes with tender precision about the particular ache of growing up too quickly, of wanting things you cannot name, of finding beauty in the ordinary fields and farms of the Middle West.