Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Long Man - Amy Greene

This book was a joy to read.  It's the story of about 4 days in the 1930's in the Appalachians just before a town is wiped out by the lake building up behind a dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority.  A young mother refuses the TVA's offer to leave her farm, where her parents grew up and she and her daughter live with her husband.  He's ready to move on and they are at odds over leaving, when their daughter, only 5, disappears during a rainstorm.

The characters are warm and complex, brave and stubborn.  The descriptions of the mountains and the small town, their fields and homes and trees and meadows take you to those places, make you smell the green and feel the breeze.

The title refers to the Indian name for the Tennessee River, called Long Man because its head was in the mountains and its legs stretched out into the valley.  It's about loss and leaving and in the end redemption.

Published: 2014  Read: June 2014  Genre: Fiction

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