The time is the turn of the century, the place Indiana. Indiana is a frontier state with miles of open farmland where vast distances separate settlers from family, and prostitutes are embraced alongside the piety of a Bible-reading society. A handsome and charismatic politician, Ham Dillon courts Maggie Thompson, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, recently arrived from the East. After their marriage in 1898, and the birth of two children, Maggie's vibrant sister, Allie, enters their world.

Allie had overshadowed Maggie as a child, but then married her sickly schoolteacher, Link Hale, who failed to fulfill his promise to her to become a man of consequence. When Ham Dillon and his sister-in-law are overcome by their attraction to each other, tragedy ensues - culminating in the drama of a murder trial, which makes headlines for its early and controversial use of the insanity plea.

In Indiana Gothic, Pope Brock tells the true story of his great-grandfather Ham Dillon, re-creating the era in such vivid detail that it feels like time travel. Atmospheric and gripping, Indiana Gothic is a bold saga of an American past that is both forever lost and strangely, startlingly familiar.