Sands of Halcyon
Set in California's Oceano Dunes during the Great Depression, young Padget comes of age inside the unconventional Dunite community as modernity closes in on their way of life.
Along a windswept stretch of California coastline, a loose community of artists, mystics, drifters, and outcasts has built a life outside the rules of Depression-era America — the Dunites, scraping out an existence among the dunes on their own terms.
Padget is coming of age inside that world, shaped by people who chose the margins over the mainstream and built something real there. But the Dunite way of life is fragile, and the same economic collapse that drove people to the dunes in the first place is now bringing modernity — and the outside world's rules — right to their doorstep.
Sands of Halcyon follows Padget and the community around them as they try to hold onto a way of living that was never meant to last, and the reckoning that comes when the world outside the dunes stops leaving them alone.
The Dunites are a real, largely forgotten piece of California history — a genuine intentional community of free-thinkers who built a life for themselves on the margins during one of the hardest stretches in American history. Sands of Halcyon is about what it costs to build a world of your own choosing, and what happens when the rest of the world decides it isn't allowed to last.