Local Author Wins Midwest Book Awards

Cynthia Kraack’s fifth novel, The High Cost of Flowers, is the winner of 2014 Midwest Book Awards in the separate categories of Literary Fiction and Contemporary Fiction. The novel tells a contemporary American family story where an insufficient healthcare delivery system offers little relief for an elderly spouse reluctant to lose the companionship of his loved one to dementia.

Kraack opens the conversation through multiple generations of a fictional Minnesota family. Katherine Kemper’s world continues to shrink as vascular dementia claims her memory and congestive heart failure weakens her body. The impact on her husband and adult children colors many aspects of their daily lives.

The High Cost of Flowers began while Kraack supported her own father in caring for her mother after a series of strokes. “The devotion to his wife displayed by character Art Kemper was modeled on the best of my father who managed to honor my mother’s desire to stay home until she passed.”

Kraack is a part-time resident of Door County and board member of Write On, Door County. The Midwest Book Awards are sponsored by the Midwest Independent Publishing Association representing publishers in 12 Midwestern states. Kraack’s short story “Painter, Painter” took second place in the 2011 Hal Grutzmacher Literary Contest (now known as the Hal Prize).