Synopsis

At St. Elias College in northern Minnesota, where old stone buildings rise above the evergreens and a narrow creek winds through the center of campus, literature professor Owen Sheffield has built a comfortable life around tenure and the firm belief that he has earned it. He has never once wondered who paid for it. Owen’s colleague and ex-wife Meredith, on the other hand, has experienced how quickly such certainty can disappear. So when a fearful student comes to her office with a secret she can’t afford to tell, Meredith knows she must do what’s right despite the cost.

Meanwhile, at a university in Massachusetts, Owen and Meredith's daughter, Suvi, studies with a history professor who recovers forgotten lives. While on a research trip to a long-abandoned cemetery, Suvi discovers a name on a headstone—and the story behind it—that someone close to her would rather leave buried.

Then comes Owen’s controversial book, a provocative examination of work, class, and culture in rural America that puts him deeply at odds with nearly everyone in his orbit—and far beyond it. Soon there are protests. An undocumented student disappears. A daughter finds herself in public opposition to her father. And Owen's comfortable life begins to come apart, one footnote at a time.

Matt Ridenour’s debut novel, A Small, Careful Thing, is a contemporary campus novel, one that follows debates about privilege and power from the college classroom to the kitchen table. At its heart is one question: Who gets to belong, and whose exclusion makes that belonging possible?