Finding your compass point, that place you feel comfortable, is what Judi Bergen’s debut novel, is all about.

“It is a common human need, to belong,” mused Bergen, as she sat in the kitchen of her Austin home.

“Longing to Belong,” is set in Turtle Creek, Iowa, in a small farming community. Amanda, a young motherless child, is being raised by her father’s sister, Aunt Ethel, while her busy father, the town’s doctor, keeps to his busy schedule.

But there are secrets to keep in the small town, and that is central to the novel.

“Both Amanda and Ethel spoke very clearly to me and their struggles,” Bergen said, adding those things that prevent them from being happy — tragedies, gossip, and the secrets families hold — help build and push the book forward.

A native of Truman, Minnesota, Bergen, 75, was raised on a dairy farm by her father, Ed Geistfeld, who ran the Utilitas Dairy, and her mother, Marion, “a very gentle woman,” Bergen said. She can remember driving her trike behind the cows as her father would milk the herd.

Her love of writing came early: she remembers vividly wanting to fill all the pages in her Blue Book, those small booklets of lined paper given to students to write their essay test answers.

“I also had this little diary,” she said. “I loved to write, although I have to say I got bored with it. Too much of, ‘Today, I played with my good friend, Mary, and we had a swell time,’ “ she said with a laugh.

She turned to journalism in college, but found its requirements intimidating; upon the advice of college adviser, she transferred to the sociology department and then earned her master’s degree in social work at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. She met her husband, Dick, on a blind date during one summer in Milwaukee. She said she was taken by his humor and waited for him to complete medical school — his field in subsequent years was radiology — until they were married in 1962.

Social work proved to be fulfilling and she spent 40 years as a therapist in both inpatient and outpatient settings. The majority of her writing during those years came in case histories, although she wrote short stories that were accepted for publication in literary journals.

And, she often journaled, which gave her comfort, she said.

“It helped when things were bothering me — the plans I had, the daydreams I had,” she said.

Her work with patients also deepened her compassion for those who were broken or lost; in her later years, she worked with hospice patients.

Her visits with one of the hospice patients, Walter Wienke, proved to be a bridge between professions. Wienke, a modest farmer who lived without indoor plumbing, later left a bequest to the Austin Public Library of almost $1 million dollars. Bergen said Wienke was characterized by some as a lovable eccentric — a caricature that wasn’t altogether accurate. So, at the time of the dedication of a memorial in his name, Bergen wrote an essay about the man she knew, “a happy man who lived life on his own terms … (and) although there was a tranquility in the sparse furnishings (of his home), I know that if I lived in Walter’s house I would have to bring my rugs, candles and plants. I need to have softness in the things I surround myself with. Walter stared life right in the face.” The essay ended up being published in “The Land,” an agricultural publication based in Mankato.

It was also entered into a National Writers Association contest, where it placed in the top five.

The move to devote her energies to fiction came in retirement. She incised some of her characters’ traits from personalities she knew as a child, but none of her Truman townsfolk were brought to the novel in their own skins, so to speak.

Bergen knows how to grab the reader right away. Her novel’s first chapter opens, “ ‘It’s true. Your grandfather hung himself from the rafters in the attic … in this house.” She chuckled when it is mentioned.

While she knew some things as she began to write her novel, she didn’t follow an outline, and let it take its own journey.

“It’s rather like driving a car at night … you only go as far as the headlights,” she said with a chuckle.

Fans, take heart: There is a sequel. She is not far enough into the book to talk about it at length, but said many of her characters return to take their place in the small town of Turtle Creek — she chose Iowa, just on the off-chance anyone in Truman thought she was writing about them, she admitted — but “there are new characters as well,” she said with a smile.

We again follow Amanda and learn that her father — the busy town doctor, Carlton — now has a girlfriend.

“Longing to Belong,” published by Shipwreckt Books Publishing Company, is available at Sweet Reads in Austin, and online.