In her new novel, Steel, Kathleen Novak returns with a tightly woven love story set against the turmoil of the 1920s-gun violence, urban crime, ethnic conflicts, and finally the Great Depression.

As the narrative moves from the edges of the world's largest iron ore mine to the gritty streets of Chicago, two lovers come together believing their destiny has no limits, that they can be and do whatever they choose. But when they make different choices and begin to fall away from one another, the young man sinks to a desperation that no one around him can predict or prevent. The stock market crashes. He loses his job. He loses himself.

And then there is his father's gun, always hanging on the wall near the door.

Suspenseful and poetic, Steel takes you from the gang shootings of Chicago and the beautiful anguish of first love, forward to the present day and an aging man's reflections on family and want-and truth.