Berlin, 1920.
Amos Avram is haunted by the memory of what has been. A childhood of ostracization, followed by three years in the trenches of WWI, and the loss of both his legs to frostbite, but none of that compares to the horrific death of his partner, Johann, that he relives every time he closes his eyes.
After two years of electroshock therapy and recurrent visions, Amos is in just the same place he was when he was first sent away to the mental hospital his parents believed would cure him. Now he's released and finds himself in an unfamiliar setting: surrounded by a loving family that is determined to help him recover against all his protests that he's unsavable. It's a quiet life, but one that starts to unravel when Amos crosses paths with his extravagant wartime friend, Marlene, who is determined to pull him back into the world he's long since forsaken. Together with her and an alluring new companion who threatens every memory that Amos once held dear, Amos learns to adapt to this new sort of life while grappling with the demons that removed him from it in the first place.
In his moving debut novel, Neale Kelley examines what it's like to recover from insurmountable loss even when the pain of it refuses to relent. "When We Are Dust" is a celebration of life while also a lamentation for those things that get lost along the way. It's a tragedy coupled with hope, love coupled with loss, and a group of people who each learn what exactly it means to embrace a terrible life.