Synopses & Reviews
Chapter One
It is almost winter and the grass is brittle underfoot, though it remains a vibrant, almost vehement, shade of green. My mother's simple coffin rests on planks of wood, suspended above her open grave, while a handful of mourners gather along either side. The few elderly men and women stand around solemnly, unspeaking, like people waiting for a bus. I recognize no one, but to them, I am the stranger.
"Are you the daughter?" a voice asks.
It is the priest. His skin looks pale against his long purple vestments and his back is severely hunched beneath his overcoat. It is as if years of ministering to the people of this town have buffeted him into the humble pose, the way a tree can be permanently bent by the wind.
"Yes," I say. "Yes, I am. I'm sorry I--"
"No matter. You're here now," he says, with the firm manner of a doctor rather than the kind or careful demeanor usually ascribed to a priest. That may be the very reason my mother chose him to perform her service.
"You made it."
Martin hugs me roughly. In that brief embrace, I can smell the liquor on him.
"I'm glad you're here," he says.
His eyes linger on my face for a moment, a flicker of grateful recollection, then he pulls away, uncomfortable being so close. I know better than to ask him how he's been. It will only invite an argument about how I haven't called or written or visited, about how I have abandoned my old life, this town and him. It is neither the time nor the place for a conversation about my failings. To spare him the silence, I ask softly, "Who are these people?"
"Couldn't say for sure. All from the church, I s'pose."
We are my mother's only living relatives, the only remnants of her family.
"Priest's about to start," Martin says, ending the conversation before either one of us can say something that might make us feel more than we have to.
What I know about my brother's life now is scant, almost cryptic, like the bottom of a page torn out of a long, inscrutable book. He hasn't worked in years and has never married. For him, home is a room in a boardinghouse and the only regular thing about his life is the welfare checks he receives monthly in the mail. Decades of heavy drinking have taken their toll. It is as though the liquor has literally diluted my brother's blood, leaving his spirit limp, like a bedsheet on a clothesline in a gale. He is not the person I once knew nor, I doubt, will he ever be again.
The priest clears his throat and bows his head ceremoniously. Martin drops his eyes, then buries his hands in his pockets, hiding them from the chill of the rising wind. It appears to be an effort for him to stand straight. I can't be sure if he is drunk or if it is true sorrow that has rendered him unsteady. When he was a child, my brother was precocious, eager, resolute. He was the child I would have liked to be. But since that one spring in our childhood, when everything in our small world unhinged itself from what we knew it to be, my brother has never been the same. From then on, Martin was a ship setadrift, never able to maintain course. Years later, his drinking served only to snap the few sails he had onboard. I fear that with my mother's death Martin's ship will run aground and become hopelessly moored on shore, never to set sail again. It is a fear that stings my heart ...
Review
“After a well-received collection of short stories entitled Destination Known... The Grave of Gods Daughter affirms the literary promise indicated by the authors shorter work.” Z-Wire
Synopsis
Set in a 1940's Pennsylvania mining town, Block's haunting debut novel is the coming-of-age tale of a 12-year-old girl who in desperation for her mother's approval, sets out to replace her most prized possession--and unknowingly uncovers her family's darkest secret.
Synopsis
Brett Ellen Block's unforgettable debut novel, The Grave of God's Daughter, is a haunting story of lost innocence, transgression, faith, and forgiveness set against the stark canvas of a struggling mill town.
At the funeral of her estranged mother, a woman is faced with the past she has tried to put behind her only to find that what transpired in her childhood has never been further away than her own shadow, and now the choice to close the thirty-year rift between mother and daughter has been laid before her.
The year is 1941. Rooted in the lonely outreaches of the Allegheny Mountains is the town of Hyde Bend. Its heart was a steel mill; its bones are the tight community of Polish immigrants who inhabit it; and its blood, their fierce Catholic faith. But buried in the town's soul is a dangerous secret surrounding the death of a revered priest.
When a young girl from the town's poorest quarter accidentally unearths a sliver of the truth surrounding the illicit secret, a woman is found dead and Hyde Bend erupts in fear and finger-pointing. Compelled to unravel the intertwining mysteries, the young girl discovers her own family at the center. To save them and herself, she must confront everything she thought she knew, including her feelings about all she holds sacred.
Vivid, evocative, and psychologically penetrating, The Grave of God's Daughter captures the hidden inner life of a town battling to survive in a rapidly changing world, and paints an extraordinary portrait of a young girl's fierce longing for grace. The result is a novel of transcendent beauty that no reader will soon forget.
Synopsis
Set against the stark canvas of a struggling mill town, this is a haunting first novel of innocence, transgressions, and forgiveness from the prizewinning author of "Destination Known").
About the Author
Brett Ellen Block received her undergraduate degree in fine arts from the University of Michigan. She went on to earn graduate degrees at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of East Anglia's Fiction Writing Program in England. She won the Drue Heinz Literary Prize for her debut collection of short stories, Destination Known, and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. She is also the author of The Grave of God's Daughter. She lives in Los Angeles.