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The introduction, questions, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Amy Greene’s compelling debut novel, Bloodroot—a sweeping, multigenerational story set in the hardscrabble hollows of eastern Tennessee.
Bloodroot (Vintage Contemporaries)
Used Trade Paper
Amy Greene
0 stars -
0 reviews
$7.50
In Stock
Product details
384 pages
Vintage Books USA -
English9780307390578
Reviews:
"Review"
by Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly,
“Some novels are so powerful, so magical in their sweep and voice, that they leave you feeling drugged. Close the pages and the people in them keep right on talking to you. Amy Greene’s debut novel, Bloodroot, set in the bone-poor hollows of the eastern Tennessee mountains, is such a book....I found myself close to tears at several turns — devastated along with the characters by another crazed loss — and yet never depressed. Greene’s writing is so pure and effortless, so evocative of a far-off place, that the beauty of her words transcends whatever miseries her characters must overcome....Greene, who grew up in the Smoky Mountains, captures what poverty looks and feels and sounds like. Her descriptions of a life lived by the railroad tracks rival any corner scene from The Wire. The vernacular is effortless and thick....This is a terribly sad, breathtakingly good read. Greene, get to writing another one quick.”
"Review"
by The Boston Globe,
"Masterful....A fascinating and authentic look at a rural world full of love and life, dreams and disappointment."
"Review"
by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
"If Wuthering Heights had been set in southern Appalachia, it might have taken place on Bloodroot Mountain....Brooding, dark and beautifully imagined."
"Review"
by Louisville Courier-Journal,
"That rare sort of family story that feels intimate instead of epic....Alluring and wonderful."
"Review"
by Glamour,
"Greene's prose will cast a spell on you."
"Review"
by Wally Lamb, author of The Hour I First Believed,
"Amy Greene's Bloodroot can stand proudly beside Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle, two works which likewise examine the isometric push of the human spirit against the immovable forces of tyranny and poverty. Greene's novel has everything I savor in fiction: flawed but sympathetic characters, a narrative as unpredictable as it is engaging, and a setting rendered with such a vivid palette of local color detail that you'd swear you were there."
"Review"
by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
"Reminiscent of McCarthy's early Appalachian fiction....Hard to put down....What consistently remains is Greene's spot-on account of a land and its people — with its old-fashioned Scots-Irish dialect and its close-knit communities, its homespun Christianity and its folk remedies."
"Review"
by The New York Times Book Review,
"Bloodroot takes place in Appalachia and, yes, Greene lovingly describes its mountains and hollows, its waters filled with bluegills....But this story is really about the fraught, sometimes dangerous, bonds between children and their mothers."
"Review"
by Knoxville News-Sentinel,
"Haunting....Woven into [Bloodroot] is mountain magic, family history, rural poverty and each generation's effort to make things better for their children."
"Review"
by USA Today,
"Stirring....The wild beauty of Appalachia is...entrancing....The novel's charm comes from its hints of magical realism. Women with 'gifts' — to heal, make love potions and put curses on their enemies."
"Review"
by The Madison County Herald,
"Bloodroot spins a web of tragic history, mountain lore, and forbidden love amid the beauty of east Tennessee's hill country....Will steal your heart."
"Review"
by The Onion's A.V. Club,
"One of those warm, wise novels that turns into a word-of-mouth sensation....[Bloodroot's] weird swirl of Southern Gothic and bleak domestic drama keeps the pages turning....Greene has a vivid sense of her mountain and its surrounding communities and that sense of a natural wonderland slowly coming unhinged gives the book [its] soul."
"Review"
by Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha,
"Bloodroot is a marvel of a first novel, its world deftly conjured, with a mood and magic all its own. I don't know what captivated me more, the vividness of its voices or its evocation of a corner of the American landscape both foreign and familiar — but I was riveted from start to finish."
"Review"
by Sacramento News and Review,
"Romantic, riveting, and beautiful: Bloodroot demonstrates how the soul of one woman can possess the spirit of many....Reminiscent of Toni Morrison....Filled with passion and poetry, Bloodroot is an exciting beginning for a literary career."
"Review"
by Hudson Valley News,
"A magical story, a story of passion, madness, a mystery, and a wild and tempestuous place."
"Review"
by The Star-News,
"[Bloodroot's] power is awesome, peeling away layers of the human experience like an onion until it reaches a message of redemption. Greene proves herself a newcomer to watch."
"Review"
by Ron Rash, author of Serena,
"Amy Greene is a born storyteller who depicts the voices and folkways of Appalachia with both eloquence and verisimilitude. A striking debut by a gifted writer."
"Review"
by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,
"Creates indelible, endearing images of the mountains, the small towns, and the townsfolk [of Eastern Tennessee]."
"Synopsis"
by Random,
Myra Lamb is a wild girl with mysterious, haint blue eyes who grows up on remote Bloodroot Mountain. Her grandmother, Byrdie, protects her fiercely and passes down “the touch” that bewitches people and animals alike. But when John Odom tries to tame Myra, it sparks a shocking disaster, ripping lives apart. Bloodroot is the dark and riveting story of the legacies — of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss — that haunt one family across the generations.
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