{"id":7040,"date":"2025-01-25T09:30:48","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/read-an-excerpt-from-tent-city-by-amy-l-bernstein\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T19:49:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T19:49:22","slug":"read-an-excerpt-from-tent-city-by-amy-l-bernstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/read-an-excerpt-from-tent-city-by-amy-l-bernstein\/","title":{"rendered":"Read An Excerpt From Tent City By Amy L. Bernstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Tent City: A Novel <\/em><\/a>by Amy L. Bernstein, a once-stable family is pushed to the brink when economic collapse transforms their backyard into a refuge for the desperate, forcing them to confront betrayal, resilience, and the unraveling of the American Dream. Below is an excerpt from the novel.<\/p>\n

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Chapter One<\/h1>\n
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Hero_Foreclosures.com
JUST LISTED!
100k sq. ft. shopping center, Remington
County near Willing. Ideal for mixed use
or conversion. Visit our website for an
extensive list of foreclosed properties.<\/h3>\n

Not a single one of the natural or manmade features drawn so distinctly on an 1872 map of the town of Willing, in Remington County, remains visible in the twenty-first century. The Tong River that once ran like a crooked seam through the town, cleaving it in two, was dammed and paved over by 1915. The sawmills and textile mills hugging the Tong\u2019s shores were gone before that. Gone too were the smoke-stacked candy factory, the spice factory, and the smelly tannery that rose up in fits of fevered industry as the town\u2019s borders expanded. All the jobs generated by the organized dismantling of all these large commercial properties dried up ages ago\u2014the bricks carted off to begin life anew in service to less grand enterprises.<\/p>\n

No matter. Sylvia Bird King never studied an 1872 map of Willing. And when the time came 15 years ago for Sylvia, then pregnant with twins Jeannie and Zeke, and her husband Carson King to buy their first house, Willing\u2019s old industrial sob story wasn\u2019t on the radar. And that house, oh that house: love at first sight. The house itself was a spacious but standard-issue center-hall colonial. But the yard told a different story, a story about success and prosperity that reflected the perpetual gleam in the couple\u2019s eyes. Three acres of undivided land, the largest undeveloped plot of residentially zoned land in all of Willing\u2014longer than two football fields combined. History and nature
had conspired to create an enormous, level carpet of grass running the full width of the rear of the Kings\u2019 house and then many hundreds of yards beyond the back deck, stopping only at a dense stand of pin oak trees, which in turn lead downhill to a forgotten stream that was once a tributary to the Tong. Carson insisted upon keeping the expanse weed-free and uncluttered. No children\u2019s swing set or climbing castle. No garden gnomes or rose bushes. The yard was adorned simply by virtue of its own sweeping green expanse. The Kings called it the manor grounds and considered it their economic insurance policy: land that could be subdivided and sold at an enormous profit someday. A day they knew was bound to arrive, as if foretold.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a recent April morning, the yard is in fine form, as usual. But it is also beside the point. Sylvia and Carson, wrapped in blankets, drink coffee on the east-facing deck, as they so often do, the morning light glinting off the glass-topped table lightly coated with pollen dust. Both have eyes glued to phones. Neither takes in the hopping robins and the first fresh green grass of the season glistening with dew.<\/p>\n

Carson argues with a text. \u201cWe\u2019re not doing that. Not letting Bruno and Jorge go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sylvia pursues her own train of thought. \u201cIf I don\u2019t sell the Walters property this week, they\u2019ll pull the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re over-budget on these damn houses,\u201d Carson growls. \u201cBut it\u2019s just a blip. Vin and Dizz, over-reacting again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sylvia glances briefly at her husband. \u201cI need you to get Jeannie after soccer this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sylvia shoots him a look. \u201cI\u2019ll trade you one Jeannie pick-up for a trip with Zeke and his friends to the monster truck show on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I<\/em> want to go to the monster truck show. Guy time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFine,\u201d she says. Checkmate<\/em>. \u201cThen you can do both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carson\u2019s phone rings. \u201cYeah, I\u2019m heading out to the site now. We\u2019ll talk about it when I get there. Listen, Vin, you and Dizz gotta start playing the long-game!\u201d He waves absently at Sylvia and disappears inside the house.<\/p>\n

Sylvia looks out across the lawn, cup halfway to her lips.<\/p>\n

Between one rapid eye blink and another, everything in her line of sight shifts. The great lawn is now blanketed by rows and rows of pitched tents\u2014a sea of colored nylon pyramids and plastic stakes drilled into the soft earth, threaded with thin, taught ropes. Sylvia blinks hard, her phone falling by her side. She looks again: Tents everywhere. Shad ows move inside the tents, as sunlight hits the opaque structures. And a sound comes from nowhere, yet is everywhere, a loud rush of air, almost voice-like in its insistence. Sylvia looks away, eyes welling with tears for no reason. No one is nearby to confirm or deny this vision\u2014or what it might mean. The people who know her best, who wouldn\u2019t hesitate to tell her she\u2019s crazy, are inside, getting ready for the day.<\/p>\n

Sylvia stands and scoops up her phone. No<\/em>, she thinks. I have no time for this\u2026menopausal bullshit\u2026or whatever it is<\/em>. She turns quickly toward the sliding glass doors, just in time to catch twins Jeannie and Zeke\u2014earbuds jammed in, the better to tune out parental instructions.<\/p>\n

\u201cBye,\u201d the twins chorus, then disappear. Sylvia waves at their backs\u2014lanky, brown-haired Jeannie, and curly blond Zeke, always in a hurry now.<\/p>\n

Her phone rings as she turns back to face the yard, reassured by the ordinary, featureless expanse of green.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all due respect, Mr. Walters, our agreement says the end of the month,\u201d Sylvia tells her caller. \u201cI still have a whole week. I\u2019m doing absolutely everything I can, believe me. Please\u2026 No, I\u2019m not\u2026 I don\u2019t need\u2026Thank you\u2026You too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terrible clients, the Walters. A realtor\u2019s worst nightmare: fussy, always changing their minds. And what expectations! Unrealistic\u2014even in the best of markets. Irritated, Sylvia turns back again to the yard for solace, a slight catch in her breath. It\u2019s just stress<\/em>. But reality is once more out of sync, the vast acreage again transformed\u2014a full-on encampment now. Among the tents, fires burn inside metal drums. Laundry dries on strung-up ropes. A soccer ball and a child\u2019s doll lie on the ground just feet from the deck. Sylvia shakes her head briskly before dashing inside to grab car keys, purse, and the extravagantly expensive lavender coat with flower-shaped buttons she bought recently, just because it\u2019s spring, and because the color contrasts nicely with her thick, brown, shoulder-length curls.<\/p>\n

Get a grip.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Visit our\u00a0Reading Essentials<\/a>\u00a0section to discover the best\u00a0bookshelves<\/a>,\u00a0reading chairs<\/a>,\u00a0book lights for reading at night<\/a>, and more!<\/p>\n

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In Tent City: A Novel by Amy L. Bernstein, a once-stable family is pushed to the brink when economic collapse transforms their backyard into a refuge for the desperate, forcing them to confront betrayal, resilience, and the unraveling of the American Dream. Below is an excerpt from the novel. Chapter One Hero_Foreclosures.comJUST LISTED!100k sq. ft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[349],"class_list":["post-7040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-gad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}