"The Griefmaker" Is Making Waves in Kansas

August 19, 2022 at 11:58 AM EDT

George Gurley's triumphant new environmental drama set on the Great Plains of Kansas is garnering great reviews! With a gorgeous cover by noted artist Louis Copt, this tale of land preservationist versus land developer is a western for modern times.

Lawrence, Kansas Aug 19, 2022 (Issuewire.com) - "George Gurley has the eye and ear of a poet. His descriptions of the weather, the landscape, the wild animals set the stage for the adversities and aspirations of the prairie state." --Playwright Frank Higgins, "The Sweet By 'n' By, "Black Pearl Sings."

High-school friends and rivals, Tenbrook and Pillars, find themselves on opposite sides of a barbed wire fence when one decides to plow and develop the native prairie they hunted together as youths. Gurley lays bare a boiling feud pitting preservationists against developers, working man against moneyed power, and old values against new desires.

The rolling fields of Kansas are the backdrop of this epic tale of conflict, unrequited love, self-discovery, and redemption. Tenbrook and Pillars played football together in school, and as they enter middle age, they now play a game of chicken, gambling with the women they desire, the land they both cherish, and the underworld. At stake is the fate of the Griefmaker, a thousand-acre piece of virgin prairie, never broken by a plow. Once owned by Tenbrook's family, the Griefmaker is now in the hands of Pillars. Tenbrook wants to preserve the prairie; Pillars want to develop it. When Pillars plows up the Griefmaker, the stage is set for a conflict that leads to crime and violence.

Gurley, himself an environmentalist, lives on a farm in Kansas where he and his wife Susan have been working on a native prairie restoration project for 20 years.

George Gurley is available for interviews about his soon-to-be-released novel, The Griefmaker, and he'll be giving a reading at the Cider Gallery, Lawrence, Kansas on September 18, 2022, from 4:00 - 6:00 pm.