“Forever Blackbirds,” by Portland author Dian Greenwood, follows immigrant Marta Gottlieb from 1914 Russia to North Dakota, where in middle age she begins to question her evangelical faith.

Portland author Dian Greenwood draws inspiration from her childhood in the Dakotas for her latest novel, “Forever Blackbirds.”

She also plucks story elements from tales told by her grandmother about how their family had emigrated from Ukraine — then part of Russia — and resettled in the American Midwest.

Although the author has spent most of her adult life on the West Coast, this tale vividly captures the Great Plains’ tough winters and stifling summers in two different but related narratives, separated by three decades.

The main character in each of these tales is Marta.

One story takes place in 1914 when young Marta and her family flee Cossack oppression in Russia and immigrate to the United States. The second story strand picks up 30 years later after Marta has had to grapple with a host of challenges.

Greenwood intertwines the stories, placing “breadcrumbs” in the chapters set in the early years that later lead to dramatic instances of betrayal and disappointment.

Born early in the 20th century, Marta is already a grandmother by the time she reaches the 1940s. Her husband is terminally ill, her elder brother is chronically ill, and her oldest son and two sons-in-law have gone off to fight in World War II.

Her two married daughters, now mothers themselves, are considered too headstrong, not only by Marta’s pious standards but also by her pastor and the gossips in Marta’s small town.

She turns to the following for solace: her youngest son, who still lives at home; her grandchildren, who come to visit often; the baked goods she creates from old country recipes; and perhaps above all, the Bible.

Repeatedly challenged by calamities and adversity, Marta in middle age can’t help thinking that “fear was the one thing we could count on; our futures uncertain, like the wind here blowing a strange but familiar warning, and the ground too hard to bury the dead.”

Yet one particular loss — the latest, but not the last, in a long series of calamities — proves to be particularly excruciating for her.

And although she diligently — her daughters might characterize it as obstinately — tries to adhere to her faith, faith isn’t buying the groceries, faith isn’t conveying her daughter to work the next town over, and faith isn’t fixing the stuff that breaks around the house.

Throughout much of “Forever Blackbirds,” the pacing of the story depends on the actions happening around the main character, and not on Marta herself, who persists in her own plodding way.

But eventually, she has to learn skills beyond baking and cleaning. She needs to learn to see people for who they really are, via their deeds and character, and not necessarily through their church affiliations or social standing.

Finally, she comes to realize that the status quo she has worked for decades to uphold has never served her particularly well.

It isn’t until the book’s end that Marta takes a lesson perhaps from the blackbirds right outside her window: that she, too, can spread her wings.

This week’s book

“Forever Blackbirds” by Dian Greenwood

Travelers Moon Press — 320 pp — $18.99