The Midlanders

Aurelie’s odyssey begins within the claustrophobic sanctity of a New Orleans convent, a vessel of innocence seeking a horizon beyond ecclesiastical stone. Her liberation arrives via the rugged, salt-caked hands of Captain Lindstrom, a Mississippi riverboat sovereign who plucks her from anonymity. Yet, the river’s fluid freedom is ephemeral; Lindstrom, yearning for her domestic stability, transplants Aurelie to the stagnant, judgmental soil of a river valley town under the guardianship of his brother, John. Here, the foundling metamorphoses into a radiant cynosure, her beauty becoming a currency that both elevates and isolates her. Winning a regional beauty contest serves as a Faustian bargain, propelling her into the incandescent glow of the theatrical stage. Her meteoric ascent in the city, however, serves only to sharpen the provincial daggers of her hometown. Upon her return, she is met not with accolades, but with the cold friction of Victorian morality and social gatekeeping. Caught in a gravitational pull between three disparate archetypes of American masculinity—the intellectual Harlan Van Hart, the observant editor Wiley Curran, and the steadfast Arney Vance—Aurelie must navigate a labyrinth of reputation and desire to reclaim her agency in a world determined to categorize her as either a saint or a spectacle.