Bloodroot
by Amy Greene
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Book Reviews of Bloodroot
Book Review: Poignant, often tragic, look at multi-generational Applachian life
Summary: 4 Stars
Bloodroot is a penetrating look at the often hard, yet enduring life in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee for multiple generations of the same family. Starting with great-grandmother Byrdie around the time of the Great Depression and cycling forward to present day, the author does a good job of developing characters who you can relate to in one way or another. Their relationships with each other and with Bloodroot Mountain, the home they either cling to or long to escape from, are the focus of this debut novel by author Amy Greene.
Having grown up in Tennessee, I believe the author did a good job of portraying a way of life that, in a lot of ways, still exists there today. This is not a novel with a happy-go-lucky ending tied together in a pretty red bow. The characters are real, their actions are real, and the ensuing consequences on their own lives and future generations are real. Having said that, it should be noted that there is ultimately a lot of tragedy in the lives of these characters that isn't often redeemed for the reader. Life is about ups and downs, and the majority of these characters see mostly downs with very minimal ups. But, thanks in part to the author's character development, I did care about them and wanted to see them through to the end. I rooted for them to find what they were looking for - or in some cases - just survive to see the next day.
There are some parts that are somewhat confusing: in relevance, unveiling order of plot events and writing style. However, the author had an enthusiastic eye for the details which did put you there with the characters, and did keep me turning the pages. The dialect may be somewhat jarring for those that have never been exposed to it, but for the most part the story flows, and you ultimately do want to see Bloodroot through to its conclusion.
Book Review: Like a Well Written, Too Long, Country Music Finalist
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This book has a great quote from Wally Lamb on the cover. It's received wonderful reviews from a variety of sources. Amazon is making it a book of the month. But it was just too long for me, too overdramatic, too tragic. No doubt about it: the author can write. As you read the first section, you will feel like you are traveling up the hill with Myra, Mark, and Doug. You will want to sit at the table with the grandmother, to look out over the mountain, to see Wild Rose. You will believe in the grannies' magic. But then, oh, the blood, the violence, the babies dropping like flies, the passion that is drowned in alcohol. (There's actually a real drowning at one point, but I won't say who.) All the insanity that ensues.
I wanted to like to this book, to see it as a classic, but it feels like every tragedy that ever made its way into a country western song is trapped within these pages. There's a bit of redemption (and not necessarily believable---the ending in particular), but mostly it's a long wade through four generations of abuse (self-abuse and abuse of others) and misery. I was hoping for something more like Kaye Gibbons' "Charms for the Easy Life," an engaging tale about an older woman, her daughter, and granddaughter, which is set during the same time period in a similar rural setting. It's shorter, and the characters make it to the end of the book with their hearts intact. To me, "Bloodroot" disappoints, even if the critics disagree. If only she had stopped after the first section, when there was still some promise of hope. I won't be recommending it to friends.
Book Review: A True Storyteller
Summary: 5 Stars
I have always held the opinion that anyone can author a book, but not everyone can be a writer. An author writes words on paper and if they're lucky, they will someday have pages that will be binded into a book. You may like it, you may love it, you may hate it but in the end, it's only words. But a writer, a writer weaves a story. In and out with the start of one word and when they finish, they have an incredible tapestry of words that tell a story. You see the story, in all its brillant colors. A picture painted with words.
Bloodroot is one of those tapestries, a picture that you read.
Told in different voices, it follows a family in the hills of Tennessee. Byrdie, the grandmother, who raised Myra after her parents were killed in a car meets train accident. Myra, the central character in the story and how she didn't so much as fall off the mountain as jump, and then spent most of her time trying to figure out a way to get back on the mountain. Then Johnny and Laura, Myra's twin children and how the choices we make in life effect not just us, but all those we love.
You don't have to love the South to love this story, the Appalachia folklore that some may question but others believe. Amy Greene painted a very vivid picture of life on Bloodroot Mountain. So vivid that you can taste the clear springs water, feel the dew on your feet, hear the crunching of the leaves, feel the wind blowing around you as you stand on that ledge where an ancester jumped, where Johnny was biten. You can see all of the mountain standing on that ledge and you breathe it in and you want to go there. You want to travel to that mountain where doors were always open, neighbors gave when others needed, helped when help was needed.
A brillant debut from an author that I very much look forward to reading more from.
Book Review: A heartfelt and haunting novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I was swept away into the world of Bloodroot Mountain by the time the first page was read, and I knew at that moment I was in for something special. I think this may be a book going to my favorites list. Amy Greene has managed to create a story that is both believable and wondrous with the barest hint of magic, real or imagined, placed in a passionate and wild Appalachian setting.
Through her spot-on prose Ms. Greene tells the stories of generations of a family connected, for good and bad, to a place called Bloodroot Mountain, named for a flower that both heals and poisons (used to marvelous effect throughout the story). Few words describe these characters better than tragic, and yet one cannot help but feel and cheer for them in their struggles. I fell in love with each and every one of them, even the despicable.
What caused this family's struggles? Was it the curse from a cousin? Was it the theft of a wedding ring? Greene blurs the possibilities of just life and bad luck with the lingering worriment if destiny is beyond control, and the result is achingly surreal.
And yet I cannot consider this a depressing novel. Yes, it's full of depressing things, but there is something inspiring and satisfying of how the generations continue, and it's hard to completely give up hope in the presence of the enchanting descriptions of this world.
"Bloodroot" is a triumph of spirit and heartache. It is beautifully written, beautifully told, and has the perfect air of drama with an almost storybook edge. I loved it.
Book Review: Bloodroot magic: gentle, painful, and full of nature
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The danger of Appalachian fiction is that the stories will become quaint, set as they are in a mountain world that exists like a magical and lost kingdom; isolated, unbelievably beautiful, dangerous and somehow enchanted. Bloodroot takes place partly in the mountains and partly in the world of foster homes, pool halls, cities and reform schools. That sense of Appalachia's isolation and enchantment runs like lifeblood or creekwater through this multi-generational tale of women who cannot be tamed.
The first section of the story is the most confusing, alternating between two narrators whose thankless job it is to set the stage for the mysterious story that will follow. By the time Byrdie Lamb and Douglas Cotter finish telling their stories, I was completely bewitched by the characters and the plot, but the second section, narrated by twins Johnny and Laura, is that much more powerful. The twins' story follows the dark currents of genetic inheritance, the curse of blood, how nature emerges despite any counteracting nurture.
The writing in this novel is stunning. I could smell, see, touch and taste the world of the characters, whether it was the green cool of the mountain or the dirt and rocks of a gravel yard. I could hear the scream of a baby rabbit or the scrabbling wings of a trapped bird. To have such a dark story told so beautifully makes for a wrenchingly painful tour-de-force that thankfully leaves the reader with the true possibility of redemption and hope.
Very highly recommended.