The Cut

1871—Manistee County, Michigan: Big Lumber and homesteaders are feuding. Two young lovers are caught in the middle, until the forces of nature change everything.
Alvin Price and Lydia Cockrum literally bump into one another in the summer of 1870 and fall in love. But love is seldom without its struggles. Alvin is a farmer, and Lydia is the privileged daughter of an engineer aligned with northern Michigan’s powerful lumber industry. The Cut tells the story of the two interests at odds over a dam powering a sawmill. The problem: the dam floods out hundreds of acres of farmland. When the lumbermen ignore a court order to stop the damming, Alvin leads the farmers to action. In the spring of 1871, they dig a narrow, shallow ditch five hundred yards long, intending to relieve the flooding. None of them foresee the force of nature that will rage when the bulwark holding the pent-up waters of Portage Lake is torn back. The cut changes forever the way of life around the lake, and with it, Alvin and Lydia’s relationship. But Mother Nature isn’t through with them yet. On October 8, 1871, a terrible storm will sweep across the upper Midwest, setting off fires in Chicago and dozens of other cities, including Manistee, Michigan. Can Alvin and Lydia’s love survive a second force majeure?
John Wemlinger’s latest novel, The Cut, is a nineteenth-century David and Goliath story set in northwestern Michigan, where the powerful lumber industry is trampling on the rights of local farmers trying to eke out a living on their eighty acres of land. In the aftermath of the Civil War, The Cut follows the plight of the local farmers through the eyes of their reluctant leader as he fights for his family, friends, and love. It is a beautiful story of Michiganders’ perseverance woven into Michigan’s history. —Kate Segal, former Michigan state representative for the 62nd District, and Democratic floor leader
The Cut is a stirring novel that combines fictional characters with Manistee’s lavish history of the late nineteenth-century lumbering era. With an eye for detail, Wemlinger’s novel epitomizes the Manistee County of yesteryear, as well as the trials and tribulations of the people who lived in it. —Mark Fedder, executive director, Manistee County Historical Museum