In this brave and moving epic, set in late nineteenth-century Dakota Territory, Brenda K. Marshall opens a window onto the history of a place little known and often misunderstood, to tell an original tale of desire and ambition. The lives and schemes of frontier politicians, Northern Pacific Railroad executives, bonanza farmers, and homesteaders converge in the story of Frances Houghton Bingham, who marries the son of a Red River Valley bonanza farmer in order to remain near her new husband?s sister. Seduced by the myths of opportunity driving the settlement of Dakota Territory, Frances dares to dream of a new world in which to realize her unconventional desires. Providing a counterpoint to the dramatic risks taken by Frances is the generous voice of Kirsten Knudson, the daughter of Norwegian homesteaders. As Kirsten grows from a voluble girl to a formidable woman, her observations (equal parts absurdity and insight) reveal the heart of the novel. Vast and open, like Dakota Territory itself, Dakota, Or What?s a Heaven For is about land--desired, stolen, purchased, homesteaded, loved, lost. It is about the powerful and the powerless, about boardroom deals and bedroom ultimatums, and ultimately, about the ever-shifting definitions of identity, of home, of grace. Brenda K. Marshall grew up on a farm in the Red River Valley of North Dakota. She is the author of Mavis (a novel, Fawcett-Columbine, 1996) and Teaching the Postmodern: Fiction and Theory (scholarship, Routledge, 1992). She teaches in the English Department at the University of Michigan, and lives with her partner in the countryside near Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Please visit www.brendamarshallauthor.com for more information about Marshall and Dakota, Or What's a Heaven For.