echo bridge
a novel
About the Novel
In rural North Arkansas, September 1965, favored son Joshua Collier vanishes at the start of his senior year.
He’s last seen on Echo Bridge—landmark, gathering place, memory touchstone and artery between the town and woodlands, white and black enclaves, new and old ways. Despite initial law enforcement and community searches, Josh remains missing with no word and no body found.
The story unfolds through the eyes of those haunted by the boy’s sudden absence: his stunned parents, black classmate and secret beloved Alicia, outcast and scapegoat Caleb, a war-weary county sheriff, and others. For each, the event unleashes unique fears—the loss of a treasured child, an impossible and precious love, family security, future dreams, safety.
The hunt for Josh magnifies county undercurrents, exposing both personal and community schisms. It reveals a young man fragmented by competing beliefs and expectations. With the Vietnam War and Civil Rights movement as backdrop, Josh’s disappearance triggers reckonings in Hawthorn County, altering the lives of everyone around him.
A chapter appears in Chautauqua’s 2022 issue as the short story “Deluge.”
The spark for this novel was an image: a lone boy on a through-arch bridge, light fading, water rushing, his state unknowable. What followed took inspiration from the beautiful hard land and challenging history of Arkansas Ozarks and a photograph of its Rainbow Bridge.
