Synopses & Reviews
Fourteen-year-old Audrey Martin, with her Poindexter glasses and her head humming the 3/4 meter of gospel music, knows she'll never get out of Kentucky--but when her fingers touch the piano keys, the whole church trembles. Her best friend, Caroline, daydreams about Hollywood stardom, but both girls feel destined to languish in a slow-moving stopover town in Montgomery County.
Review
"A novel of immense depth and tenderness. Townsend's prose recalls the music of Toni Morrison, and takes us on a soulful and deeply satisfying journey into the heart of Appalachia, and beyond." Roxanne Gay, author of Ayiti
Review
"An absolute marvel of a book. Jacinda Townsend is dazzling as she transports the reader to a different time and place." Jacinta Howard Upscale Magazine
Review
"A breathtakingly insightful, suspenseful, and gorgeously realized novel of cruelty and sorrow, anger and forgiveness, improvisation and survival, and the transcendent beauty of nature and art." Jonathan Odell Star Tribune
Review
"Takes us backstage at the Apollo and into the smoky, late-night clubs where the art of jazz is fashioned before our eyes...The reader is buffeted by the transformative waves of race and music in America." The New Yorker
Review
"Vivid." Jonathan Odell Star Tribune
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"Captures the imagination and the heart." Kasia Hopkins News Gazette
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"[A] novel to curl up with. . . . Irresistible." Jacinta Howard Upscale Magazine
Review
"This stunner of a novel--set in Kentucky just before Civil Rights blows Jim Crow to pieces--tracks the lives of two young black women, both outsiders, both searching, and the thorny friendship that holds them together." Junot Díaz
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"[A] novel to curl up with...Irresistible." Donna Seaman Booklist, Starred Review
Review
"Captures the imagination and the heart." Philadelphia Tribune
Synopsis
"[A] compelling debut...Townsend's writing [is] full of fresh turns of phrase and keen insights." --Anaya Mathis,
About the Author
Jacinda Townsend studied at Harvard University and Duke University Law School before receiving her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and teaches creative writing at Indiana University. Saint Monkey is her first novel.