Scribe

In her latest novel, Hagy (Boleto) departs from Wyoming, the locale of several of her earlier works, for a postapocalyptic world. The rural Virginia setting is recognizable, but is this the Civil War unfolding or a future cataclysm that resembles it? In this harrowing new world, sickness and societal unrest have ravaged the populace. The scribe—a witchlike woman whose writing has magical redemptive qualities—lives in the ruins of a plantation house. A large, unruly band of squatters camps on her land, riling her hostile neighbors, when a mysterious man arrives and asks her to write a letter in exchange for some scarce goods she needs. Complications arise between the two, and a journey ensues that takes the women into a dark and painful past. Hagy's narrative is hauntingly lyrical even as she leaves the details of this world vague, which contributes to its ominous sensibility.