“This is my favorite book by Debra Nystrom so far. It’s beautiful.”––Ann Beattie

“A fearless and elegiac book, deriving from those struggles which many of us know all too well—the final illness of the poet’s mother, the physical and mental decline of her father, and the emotional sufferings of her imprisoned brother. . . . Bad River Road arises from necessity.”—David Wojahn

Debra Nystrom grew up in South Dakota, where she returns each year to family land on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. She has published two previous books of poetry, Torn Sky and A Quarter Turn. She teaches at the University of Virginia.