Editor Declares Her Book of the Year

by Margaret Bauer, Editor

I spent last Wednesday on a plane to Greece for a much-needed vacation (and belated honeymoon), which gave me the opportunity, finally, to read Marjorie Hudson’s Indigo Field, winner of the 2023 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. I’m late to that party, but happily so, as I was so thoroughly entertained that the ten-hour flight (pardon the pun) flew by—without my laptop (i.e., access to work) to occupy my time. (My first separation from a laptop for longer than a day—12 days, in fact—and with books like this one, I felt no withdrawal symptoms or separation anxiety.) 

Indigo Field is a novel I will pick up for a reread again and again, the way I do Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, Elaine Neil Orr’s Swimming Between Worlds, Ron Rash’s The World Made Straight and Serena. I can’t wait to introduce it to students. I’ve already passed the title on to my colleague and friend Kirstin Squint, who will appreciate the rare Tuscarora presence in the novel’s plot. My husband Andrew read it in Greece after I said to him, over and over between chapters, “Oh, my God, you have to read this!” And now to you, NCLR readers, I say, read this novel. Now. Just wow. I’m not writing a review here. NCLR has already reviewed it, and I didn’t review that review before diving in. It was among books I had electronic copies of and thus could read on my iPad, and it had been on my “to read” list for some time, so I just dove in, not even reading a back cover blurb (I didn’t have the back cover). But now, I cannot wait to purchase a print copy for my shelves the next time I visit one of NC’s wonderful Indy bookstores because I must have this book on my shelf. And I can’t wait to talk with author Marjorie Hudson about this incredible novel. (Thank you, Marjorie, for writing it!) 

Indigo Field is my 2024 read the way that David Joy’s Those We Thought We Knew was my 2023 read, Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book was my 2021 read.  

Read Marjorie Hudson in NCLR‘s premiere issue and 10th anniversary issue and an interview with her in NCLR 25.