A few weeks ago, while driving to pick up Adam, I heard this author interviewed NPR and picked up the book at the library soon thereafter. (The author's last 5 novels have been NYTimes Notable Books of the Year.)
This story is set in the Ozarks, in a world of extreme poverty, family clans, woods, fields, hills, twisting roads, meth labs, alcohol, brutality, endurance and survival. It will soon be a movie that I will definitely see. The protagonist is Ree Dolly, a 17-year-old whose father has disappeared after putting their home up for bail. Her mother has lost her mind and mostly sits in a rocking chair unable to do the simplest tasks. Ree has 2 younger brothers she cares for, along with her mother. The book tells Ree's story. She is often gritty, sometimes gentle and wants desperately a better life, for herself and her brothers. It's like reading a sociology, geography and natural history book all in one. The descriptions of life in the Ozarks are vivid, both the landscape and the people, and the author immediately draws the reader into this milieu.
Ree teaches her brothers how to shoot squirrels and then they clean them and eat them. "Full stomachs brought about a spell of peace and Ree languished on the couch. She stretched on her back with her long legs propped atop the armrest and put a dish towel over her eyes so the pictures playing inside her head would flicker brightly against a darkened space."
This is another novel that tells of a piece and place of American culture that most of us never know existed. A novel both bright and dark...
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