Hidden gem. Amazing writing. Thanks for the read ( )

It starts out really slow, but gets more and more dramatic throughout. Due to the subject, it is not an easy listen, and I'm glad that times have changed for the better ,even if not yet enough by a long mile.

The narrator does a fantastic job, I very much enjoyed listening to her. ( )

It is August 1972, in Peckinpaw, KY. Mudas Summers has just turned 17, and her world has been ripped apart. Her mother, Ella, has been found hanging in her house, leaving Mudas and her baby daughter, Genevieve behind. Mudas swears that her mother would have never killed herself. Mudas wonders if her mother's abusive husband killed her mother.
Mudas, angry at her father, believing he is keeping secrets, runs out of her house, into the arms of bi-racial Bobby, highlighting racial discrimination by others in the town. But Mudas loves Bobby, and he loves her. Together, they stumble on town secrets, and are put in danger.
I liked the grit of Mudas and the kindness towards Bobby, but I think the novel tried too hard to cover many issues, and only superficially--the Vietnam War, racial tensions, interracial relationships, pre-marital sex, cockfighting, Title IX sports, government scandal. ( )

I won my free copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.

I liked this book, and it was a relatively fast read. This story starts out in Kentucky in the 1800's, where a slave woman is hanged for crimes she did no t commit. The rest of the story happens generations later in the same place, where a small town has grown up, and a feature of the town is a bench built out of the gallows wood from the hanging. The main character, Mudas, is dealing with the apparent suicide of her mother, and she spends the rest of the book trying to find out how her mom really died, and why.
1970's rural Kentucky is better than 1800's, but I'll be glad to not read books set in this sort of racist, twisted society for a while. This was a good book, as was the last book I read set in the South, but the sort of insidious, low-grade evil that permeates the town in this story bugs me, and I'll never really understand (nor do I want to) the racist people this book portrays. ( )

One of my favorite activities as a librarian is reading debut author's works. Kim Michelle Richardson's debut fiction, Liar's Bench, has all the elements that would interest my book club (Southern setting, 70s racial tensions, murder, budding adolescent love, Title IX and girl's high school sports and women's rights issues to mention a few). When offered a chance to read an advance e-copy by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review, I eagerly took the opportunity.

The setting is little town Kentucky in the 1970s. The Vietnam War is winding down and the country is adjusting to desegregation and the launch of women's rights issues. The story centers on a popular park bench made from the gallows wood of a murdered slave, Frannie Crow.

The book opens with the slave, Frannie and her son, Amos, the bastard son of the Master, Mr. Anderson. The Mistress has unjustly accused Frannie of a heinous crime and she is summarily hanged without the slightest hesitation. Her son is given the wood from his mother's gallows and instructed to build a park bench with it.

Flashing forward to the 1970s we meet Mudas “Muddy” Summers. Mudas celebrates her 17th birthday mourning the death of her mother, Ellie (Ella). Ellie's death by hanging is considered a suicide, something Mudas finds unconscionable. A cast of unsavory characters chase Mudas from pillar to post as she seeks answers to the mystery of her mother's life and death.

Mudas, a product of a dysfunctional family and a social outcast, is starving for friendship and love. She has one girlfriend who conveniently appears from time to time to provide the compulsory teenage giggling and girl talk. Mudas bonds with a mixed-race friend, Bobby, and the two seek to find the answers for her mother's death as well Bobby's family history.

Richardson has done a great job of creating interesting characters but she has failed to bring them to life. The story feels contrived and the villains are all over-the-top Boss Hog evil. The love relationship between Mudas and Bobby is sweet but jarring in context to the murder mystery narrative.

At one point, Mudas and Bobby take refuge overnight in the woods with Bobby's grandfather, Jessum. This portion of the story, simple in nature, is well done. The reader can smell the beans and cornbread cooking, feel the breezes cooling the cabin and enjoy the peaceful atmosphere.

Another strong feature of the book is the comparisons between the two women, Frannie Crow and Ella. Time hasn't improved the treatment of women by cads in the South (anywhere for that matter)!

In the end, I would rate this book a three star. I am very lenient to new author's efforts and want to be encouraging. Her first work, a memoir, The Unbreakable Child, received stellar reviews so she has the right stuff as an author inside her. Many readers looking for a fluffy feel good book will enjoy this work. I hope to have the opportunity to read the author's second fiction work, God Pretty in the Tobacco Field due out in 2016.
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