In a remote valley in Idaho in 1981, a man, a woman and three children stop running to wash the blood from their hands and bodies. They are the few survivors of a terrible tragedy. Their only choice now is, somehow, to become a family.

Five years earlier, Opal and her husband James arrive in the small mining community of Silver Valley, drawn by promises of fortune and independence. There they meet Baron Rowe, the charismatic visionary who controls the community with an iron fist. Baron's son Denny has spent his life trying, and failing, to live up to Baron's expectations, and to protect his little sister Maude from their father's excesses.

Soon, a tragic accident will change all their lives. And five years later, change will come again at the barrel of a madman's gun.

Crossing the border into Canada, Opal, Denny, Maude, little Billy and the baby find refuge in a remote hunting cabin and in the generosity of the widowed Mrs Schweers. As these five become Ma, Da, Bunny, Bear and Baby, they must unlearn all they have known, tend to wounds old and new, and start afresh.

Dirtpickers is a heart-swelling beauty of a debut novel of trauma and found family, from an incredible literary talent. Written in exquisite lyrical passages, the novel moves between the four main characters, shuffling back and forth in time, to create a story that will live long in the reader's memory.