Idra Novey

Told in alternating voices of Jean, the stepmother, and Leah, the stepdaughter, who have been estranged for many years. Though devoted to Leah, Jean divorced Leah's father when she was ten because of the father's emotionally abusive behavior toward Jean. Always an outsider in the rural Appalachian community both because she was Jewish and longed to be an artist, Jean is both unwilling and unable to leave the community. She inherits her father's home in a distressed neighborhood and begins to weld sculptures in the living room using scrap metal from a family junk yard.

Leah has grown up, become multilingual, married a man from Chile, and has a young son. She is contacted by Elliot, a man living with Jean, to tell her that Jean has died and left all of her art to Leah. While Jean's chapters precede her death, Leah's chapters take place in the aftermath of Jean's death, chronicling her return, with her blended family, to the depressed Appalachian community rife with excessive nationalism and bigotry.

In a relatively short book, the author explores the inner drive to create. And the contrast between lives that have access to education and opportunity and those who do not. It's a thought provoking novel and I look forward to more of this author's writing.… (altro)

Missed connections, false perceptions and good intentions. I can't believe I never heard of Novey. She is a creative, beautiful writer with quirky, compelling characters which is right up my alley. Jean and Leah tell of their lives in alternating chapters but never come together in this novel. When Jean and Leah were separated by an acrimonious divorce, they remained as potent forces in thought but rarely in person. What brings them together if Jean's bequest to Leah of her manglements, decades of creativity for its own sake. Into all of this comes a lost boy, Elliot.… (altro)