Carolyn D. Wall, Sweeping Up Glass
The most powerful novel I have read this year is Carolyn Wall’s Sweeping Up Glass.
Currently published by Poisoned Pen Press (hardback), with Random House picking it up and releasing it in paperback, August 2009.
ISBN-10: 1-59058-512-7 (1590585127) Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN: 978-0-385-34303-9 (0-385-34303-5) Random House (paperback)
Sweeping Up Glass is set in 1938 Kentucky, dirt poor times and determined folks barely hanging on. Olivia Harker lives with her abandoned grandson, and her crazy mom Ida, who inhabits the shack out behind their tiny country store. Olivia has her own mothering issues, her daughter has left her and her son behind. Will’m is the only bright light in Olivia’s life. This is a tale of poverty, race, love lost and found, failed relationships, and somewhere in it all the possibility of hope.
The most poignant parts of the novel are the interplay of race relations as it affects the characters particularly Olivia during her childhood and latter the decisions she must make. What we see and fail to see determined by the color of our skin. The catalyst for the story is the needless slaughter of the silver faced wolves and the mirroring of cruelty of man against man.
The story is a strong one, but in my opinion what makes this an outstanding debut novel are the characters. Olivia and Ida, Will’m and Pap, Junk and Love Alice, and the Cott’ners filled with hate. The ending will startle you, jar you, and hold you spell bound through the final chapters. I won’t spoil any of it for you.
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Comments
I broke my cardinal rule of not going to the ending before the story was over. I also broke another rule: IF the author wanted me to read the ending first, she would have put it in the middle of the book. I couldn’t put the book down and finally after chapter 37, I read the last chapter, then the 2nd to the last, then the 3rd to the last. I’ve never read a book backwards before but I couldn’t wait. I’m sure my being Japanese has nothing to do with reading the book backwards. Thank you for such a lovely, well-written story. It’s our book club selection for November here in Sacramento.
I’m waiting for your next book.
frances kakugawa
http://www.francesk.org
[...] as they say, last but certainly not least, the Fiction Award went to Carolyn D. Wall for Sweeping up Glass. If you’ve been reading my blog you already know how I feel about this [...]