![\"N\/A\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/00247c93-614.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nWe present an extract from Dirt Pickers, the debut novel by Meath author Edie May Hand.<\/p>\n
In a remote valley in Idaho in 1981, a man, a woman and three children stop running to wash the blood from their hands and bodies. They are the few survivors of a terrible tragedy. Their only choice now is, somehow, to become a family.<\/p>\n
Five years earlier, Opal and her husband James arrive at a small mining community in the Silver Valley, drawn by promises of fortune and independence. There they meet Baron Rowe, the charismatic visionary who controls the community with an iron fist. Baron’s son Denny has spent his life trying, and failing, to live up to Baron’s expectations, and to protect his little sister Maude from their father’s excesses.<\/p>\n
Soon, a tragic accident will change all their lives. And five years later, change will come again at the barrel of a gun . . .<\/p>\n
The air is sweet and heavy in the morning. Maude did not sleep well, not with the night noises and the bodies so close to her own. She made herself as small as possible, feigned rest amid her new family. Ma tried holding her and soon learned not to.<\/p>\n
When she wakes, she bypasses the canned breakfast, the wrongness that persists in this new life. Of the many things that have changed, the trees, the birds and the clouds in the sky are all the same at least. There is comfort to be found in that.<\/p>\n
The porch is empty; she stands there without shoes or socks. In her hand, she holds the shotgun, drags it along the floor like Billy with his toy. Ma hates for her to have it, but Ma is feeding the baby and the boy, roughly shaking bedsheets of their dust, checking the cupboards, and desperately trying to make a home of this place. So, Maude thinks nothing of propping herself against the porch railing, the gun’s stock sitting over her shoulder, as she takes a breath and watches the world around her: the wet leaves glistening with the mist of rain that still refuses to let up, the shed across the yard whose exterior blends seamlessly into the bark of the trees that surround it. Along its walls, there are rusted tools, wheels bent out of shape, crates and sawn-off piping, a slumped sack of chip bark.<\/p>\n
In the midst of this, a woman older than she\u2019s ever seen emerges, rifle in hand; hair like spiderwebs in wisps around her narrow face. She wears rubber boots and a vibrant dress under her plastic raincoat. Maude eyes her down the barrel of her own gun, keeps her in sight, hollers for Da without moving an inch.<\/p>\n
The woman stares at her. ‘You put that down!\u2019 she barks.<\/p>\n
She is slight, but holds her weapon with the certainty of Sarge, who was a soldier and fought in wars the world over. Maude is not afraid of her, though the thrum of her heart and the tightness in her throat make it hard to speak out, to shout back and tell her to clear off. This new home was hard-won, and Maude\u2019s not about to let it go after traipsing up the country, across the border; not after everything she\u2019s lost.<\/p>\n
The door slams open. Ma hovers over her, hands shaking.<\/p>\n
\u2018Maude,\u2019 she says. \u2018Put it down.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re a damn fool,\u2019 Maude says, ignoring her. She spits out the side of her mouth the way Sarge taught her. But Ma doesn\u2019t scold or do any soft thing that Maude is expecting of her.<\/p>\n
Instead, she yanks the gun from Maude\u2019s hands, using the weight of it to her advantage. Maude tips backward, her face warm with embarrassment. The woman eyes the exchange, hikes her rifle higher. It\u2019s too heavy for her, but lighter than Maude\u2019s shotgun. Ma checks the safety as though it wasn\u2019t already on and makes a grand show of leaning the barrel against the side of the cabin, right next to the front door. Like they are harmless, Maude thinks with gritted teeth.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m sorry,\u2019 says Ma. \u2018We had no idea that this was your home.\u2019<\/p>\n
Da comes through the door, the baby on his hip in only a diaper. She has made a mess of spit down the front of his only clean shirt. She is a ball of fat and soft joints, and will only get in the way. But at the sight of her, of Billy trotting out on Da\u2019s heels with his thumb in his mouth, the woman drops her gun, lets it swing heavy in her bony hands.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s not.\u2019 The soft wrinkles in her face dig deeper, cutting harsh lines. \u2018It was my husband\u2019s place. For hunting.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018He need it?\u2019 Da asks. Ma pinches his arm, but it\u2019s a sensible question. There\u2019s no point in letting it all go to waste if nobody\u2019s here.<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019s dead,\u2019 says the woman after a moment. Eyes like marbles, near silver in the light, drift from Ma, down to Billy, whose face is still sticky from breakfast, whose mouth gapes wide like a fish. Then to Maude; with her sunken cheeks and her dirty hair, which she shoves harshly from her face only for something to do.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m sorry to hear that,\u2019 Ma says calmly. \u2018We thought it was\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s hand cuts through the air. \u2018Forget it, just\u2014 Just put some clothes on that child.\u2019 She walks across the yard, but keeps her distance from the porch. She appears to consider something for a moment before coming to a decision. \u2018My Leroy built this all here with his own two hands \u2013 had himself all sorts of notions about coming up here with our boys. You best put it to good use.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Thank you,\u2019 Ma starts, only to be cut off again.<\/p>\n
\u2018Don\u2019t thank me yet. This place needs fixing if you want to make it habitable.\u2019 She must not like the place very much, if her sneer means anything. \u2018And if you hunt, I want half of it. I don\u2019t want to know who you are or where you came from. The less you tell me, the better.\u2019 Maude\u2019s limbs vibrate with the fight that won\u2019t come. Could it really be so simple? \u2018C\u2019mere and let me show you this generator. Leroy could never get it working right.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ma takes the baby, nudges Da and says something with her eyes that has him moving down the porch steps. He slumps as if to make himself smaller.<\/p>\n
\u2018What\u2019s your name?\u2019 Maude calls after them, leaning over the rail, hair quickly dampening beyond the safety of the awning.<\/p>\n
The woman turns back, only for a second. There is kindness in her eyes, if only Maude could see that for what it is. But Maude knows kindness like she knows long division; which is to say hardly at all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dirt Pickers is published by Manilla Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We present an extract from Dirt Pickers, the debut novel by Meath author Edie May Hand. In a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-490256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}