Windmills

Till Eulen, facing a solitary middle age, doesn't think Trujas, New Mexico is where he wants to be. His bookshop, Windmills, isn't doing well, not that he had ever expected it to. It was in homage to Don Quixote that he had named it Windmills, acknowledging the unlikelihood of any bookshop's success in a small town where, to Till's eyes anyhow, no one seemed to read. Till's world tilts the day his car breaks down outside of Trujas. Cold, needy, and befuddled when Mari and her friend Norah arrive to rescue him, he inadvertently hires Norah-young, pierced, tattooed, definitely not Till's idea of a book person-to work part-time in his store. Thrown off balance by what he has just done, Till in the next moment finds himself accepting Mari and Norah's invitation to judge auditions for the town's upcoming community theater production. Over the coming weeks, Till finds himself increasingly wrapped up in Trujas melodrama while his dusty, book-lined shop becomes home to a Trujas-style literary movement.

Doug Dunston grew up outside of Chicago and had a difficult time choosing whether to study music or physics when he went off to college. He ended up trying out physics first and music later, and he now teaches some of each at a small university in central New Mexico. He reads more nonfiction than fiction, but then, he finds a lot of fanciful material in everything he comes across. He moved to New Mexico in 1997 and lives in Albuquerque. This is his first novel.