Low April Sun

On the morning of April 19, 1995, Delaney Travis steps into the Social Security office in Oklahoma City to obtain an ID for her new job. Moments later, an explosion shatters the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building into rubble. Her boyfriend Keith and half-sister Edie are left to assume the worst--that Delaney perished in the bombing, despite lack of definitive proof. Twenty years later, now married and bonded by the tragedy, Edie and Keith's lives are upended when they begin to receive mysterious Facebook messages from someone claiming to be Delaney.

Desperate for closure, the couple embarks on separate journeys, each aiming for an artists' community in New Mexico that may hold answers. Alongside their quest is August, a recovering alcoholic with a haunting connection to the bombing. Raised in the separatist compound of Elohim City, August harbors secrets about Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the attack, and his own possible involvement in the tragedy. When his path crosses with Edie, he must choose whether to tell anyone about his past.

As the 20-year anniversary of the bombing approaches, fracking-induced earthquakes shake the ground of Oklahoma City, mirroring the unsettled lives of its residents. In their quest for answers, Edie, Keith, and August seek to understand how the shadows of the past continue to darken the present, as the ground beneath them threatens to give way once again.

In Low April Sun, acclaimed author Constance E. Squires has written the first novel to explore the enduring impact of the Oklahoma City bombing. While masterfully weaving a spellbinding mystery, Squires ultimately offers us a moving meditation on grief and forgiveness.


Author: Constance E. Squires
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 02/11/2025
Pages: 262
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.11h x 6.37w x 1.06d
ISBN: 9780806194745

About the Author
Squires, Constance E.: - Constance E. Squires is the author of Live from Medicine Park, Along the Watchtower, which won the 2012 Oklahoma Book Award, and Hit Your Brights. Her short stories have been published in The Atlantic, Guernica, The Dublin Quarterly, Shenandoah, Identity Theory, The Rolling Stone 500, and other magazines.