The New Madrid Quake Chronicles

In December 1811, a series of quakes rocked the area near New Madrid, Missouri, a settlement on the Mississippi River. Sparsely populated by French fur-traders, a dwindling number of Native Americans and newly-arrived European immigrants, the region rumbled for weeks. Rivers ran backwards. Gaseous crevasses in the earth gaped, swallowing people and buildings.

While "The New Madrid Quake Chronicles" is a story of a natural calamity, it is also a parable about the imprint a disaster can leave...