Shelley Read

“I’ve come to understand how the exceptional lurks beneath the ordinary, like the deep and mysterious world beneath the surface of the sea” (6).

The topography of a life tells a story, and the storied life of Victoria Nash, daughter of a Colorado peach farmer in the mid-twentieth century, is one of deep-rooted resilience, one that engrossed me from the beginning, even though it was evident that we’d be wading through the muck and mire of eventual grief: “I learned…that love is a private matter, to be nurtured, and even mourned, between two beings alone. It belongs to them and no one else, like a secret treasure, like a private poem” (9). One of my favorite things about this book is that it does feel like one long poem—not so much an epic but more a lamentable dirge. Still, the prose is beautifully poetic, full of budding life nourished in rich, earthy soil but also full of painful pruning and unexpected uprooting.

Besides the lovely writing, this book might be one you want to add to your TBR if any of this is appeals to your reading palette:

• A small town full of busybodies and loyalty to their own (except for the town’s outcast).

• Hard themes of racism and grief and abandonment handle with care.

• First love in all its beautiful, terrible moments.

• A story about our land, our roots: our home.
… (altro)

Victoria lives in a small introspective town in Colorado - one that will have been covered by a new reservoir by the end of the book. Hers is a family of men, the women in her life having died in tragic circumstances when she was only 12. They're either hardworking and grim (father), brutal (brother) or bitter and disabled (uncle). She is their housekeeper. One day, she meets an itinerant young man, a Native American, despised and reviled by the local community: racism is rampant . Falling in love with him changes the trajectory of her life, and is the story which makes up this book. In this account, we have the wild and rugged forest landscape which surrounds her town vividly brought to life, as well as the emotional life of Read's characters. This is an immersive tale of love, loss and resilience. As a debut novel, it's a triumph.… (altro)