A new novel (published by the University of Nebraska Press, April 2022) based on the friendship between Willa Cather and Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, exploring the purpose of art and the boundaries of intimate bonds.

“I can think of few novelists who have written so unerringly about literary ambition, especially in women.  In this quietly passionate book, Tracy Daugherty follows Willa Cather and her friend, journalist and social reformer Elsie Shepley Sergeant, through their long, ardent battle over the purpose of art, a conflict waged from the most refined salon in Boston all the way to a ruined adobe hut in New Mexico.  What superb company they are, because of their differences, and what gorgeously detailed worlds they inhabit.  This is a novel with so much heart, written with such deep intelligence, that I felt wiser and more humane myself by the end of it.”–Suzanne Berne.