Bartholomew’s Fair
Rights Sold
Description
Awards & Endorsements
Author(s)
John Jensvold
Related Titles
| Publisher | Calumet Editions |
| Publication | Jul 30, 2026 |
| Format | Paperback/Softback |
| ISBN | 978-1962834827 |
| Pages | 276 |
| Dimensions | 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.69 in |
| Age | Adult 18+ |
| Price | $18.99 |
Bartholomew’s Fair
Grief drives Jonathon Mayes from Duluth. The dead are waiting for him at Lake Pepin.
After his wife is killed without warning, Jonathon abandons their home, their business and the future they had planned together. His aimless journey ends near Wabasha, Minnesota, where he rents an isolated Tudor mansion overlooking the Mississippi River.
The Crowley House appears to offer exactly what he needs: solitude, beauty and freedom from memory. But the house has memories of its own.
A young historian is uncovering the story of Wilson Crowley, the nineteenth-century showman who built the mansion and dreamed of founding a settlement called Bartholomew’s Fair. Crowley’s fortune began in London’s notorious fairgrounds, where vulnerable human beings were exhibited as curiosities—and one of his victims may never have escaped the house.
As Jonathon grows closer to Meadow Marthaler, a guarded young woman bearing profound losses of her own, strange visions, a vanished artist and secrets buried beneath the property draw him deeper into Crowley’s legacy.
To begin living again, Jonathon must confront what the dead refuse to surrender.
Bartholomew’s Fair is an atmospheric literary gothic novel of grief, haunting, historical guilt and the difficult work of starting over.
Reviews, Awards & Endorsements
Endorsement
John Jensvold has crafted a story of loss and longing rooted in the contradictions of Minnesota’s present and past. Bartholomew’s Fair is a compelling page-turner with more than enough secrets and surprises to keep the reader on edge. But more than that, it’s a chronicle of a damaged soul, stumbling toward redemption.
—Dave Kenney, author of Minnesota in the ‘70s and Camp du Nord: All Nature Sings
Endorsement
In Bartholomew’s Fair, John Jensvold delivers a moving story about what it means to carry loss — and what it takes to face the past. When Jonathon Mayes loses his wife in a tragic accident, he leaves behind his former life in Duluth and retreats to a quiet Minnesota town on the Mississippi River hoping for peace and a fresh start. Instead, he finds himself living in an old house haunted by real historical trauma. As Jonathon confronts both personal grief and the dark legacy buried in the town’s history, the novel explores how healing often begins with truth-telling. Bartholomew’s Fair is an honest, deeply felt meditation on memory, sorrow, love, and starting again.
—Thomas Saylor, author of Remembering the Good War and Minnesota in the 70s
Endorsement
In Bartholomew’s Fair, John Jensvold weaves a compelling place-based story that explores how one man works to escape the grief of his wife’s death by finding a new place to call home.
—David Hakensen, author of Her Place in the Woods: The Life of Helen Hoover
Author
John Jensvold
John Jensvold’s fiction appeared in “Alligator Juniper,” “Haunted Waters Press,” “Tin Can Literary Journal,” and “Santa Fe Writers Project.” His debut novel, Until the Big Water Takes Them, received favorable notice from the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Jensvold holds degrees from St. Olaf College and the University of Saint Thomas.