Appalacian Epic

Inspired by a rave review in Entertainment Weekly, I recently picked up the audio version of a debut novel by Amy Greene–Bloodroot. The book follows four-generations of the Lamb family who have their “roots” in the Appalacian Mountains–specifically, from Bloodroot Mountain, named for a type of flower blanketing its sides. The novel is broken into three sections, each with two alternating narrators. All of these narrators have a connection to the book’s central figure, Myra Lamb. The book  tells Myra’s story in chunks; the first section is told by Myra’s grandmother, who has raised Myra, and by Doug Cotter, a neighbor boy who has loved Myra since their childhood. We learn that Myra is a wild and free child, filled with the spirit of the Tennessee mountain range and unwilling to be harnessed by any one person or building. We also learn that Myra may have made some poor choices in her young adulthood, but Greene leaves the details unclear as the book moves into the second section, told by Myra’s twin children, Laura and Johnny. Many years have past between these two sections, and readers are constantly trying to fill in the blanks of what happened to Myra in this “lost years.” We become more entangled in the poor web of Myra’s life, and at times, we almost don’t want to hear of what had to have happened in order for the twins’ lives to have ended up the way they have. The third section finally answers some of these questions as we finally hear from Myra herself, telling the tale of the missing years during the time of the twins’ childhoods. The epilogue adds the final answers to a tale that is both heart-breaking and compelling. I had to stop myself from fast-forwarding tracks–both to avoid the heartbreak I knew the CDs contained and in order to discover more of the WHYS that this book left me wondering outloud. I loved it!