In Dust, as 1944 WWII’s autumn becomes winter, we experience Christmas in South Carolina through the eyes of twelve year-old Lily. Because she can’t always understand the meaning of what she sees and hears, we learn that beyond Lily’s senses there are secrets and adult human drama she is not privy to. Big events - letters from France, hog slaughtering, the cow’s death, school fights, Gone With the Wind - give us a feel for rural South’s rhythms of life in the mid-1940s. Dust is a chapter in a young girl’s coming of age experience at an important and changing time in her life.
