Fiction Addict

Genre: Literary

Publisher: Vintage

Publication Date: January 2010

Reviewed by Anne Barnhill

Amy Greene’s debut novel, Bloodroot, is, quite simply, wonderful.  While I admit to a certain bias favoring books set in the Appalachian Mountains, having grown up in West Virginia, this particular book is authentic.  It rings as true as a church bell.

Covering several generations of the Lamb family, this saga winds its way in and out of every corner of the human heart– love, jealousy, hatred, compassion, cruelty and kindness–each chamber is explored and exposed.  The women in this tale have various gifts: the ability to heal through touch, a special way with animals, the power of visions. They also have a darker magic–the knack for cursing others.

The Lamb family lives under the curse given them by their own cousin, Lou Ann, angry over land given to Byrdie Lamb’s grandmother and her sisters.  The curse is to last until the Lamb family has a baby with haint blue eyes, a particular color that wards off evil.  Of course, the Lamb family has mostly brown and green eyes so it seems the curse will last a while.

And last it does–through Byrdie who buries all her children before their time, to Clio, who is wild as the mountains themselves and dies young in a terrible car/train wreck, to Myra, the granddaughter Byrdie raises and pours all her love into, Myra, who loses her mind to the untamed parts of herself.

The bloodroot is a flower that grows on Bloodroot Mountain, where most of the story takes place.  When you break its root, the juice that runs out is red, like blood.  The flower has healing properties and is a symbol for all that is beautiful in the mountains and all that is dangerous and savage.

Greene’s descriptions are beautifully rendered:

Our mama (Myra) pointed to a scattering of white flowers

along the ground, peeking up through a leftover litter of

winter’s dead leaves.  She got down on her knees and dug

one up with a trowel she had brought in her dress pocket, then

held up the root for us to see.  It was thick and fleshy, like a

finger under a mess of thin, wiry hair.  She snapped it with her

long, strong hands and I was scared when I saw the red sap

because it looked like splattered blood.  I didn’t know much

better than to think she had wounded a living thing, made

a sacrifice for my ringworm.

“…Granny used bloodroot to treat everything…”

While there is stark loveliness in this book, Greene doesn’t shy away from the poverty and ignorance found in the Appalachian culture.  Her plot is tight as a Gordian knot and she brings the fatalistic vision found in the mountain mindset to bear on the events that happen.  In another kind of book, a few revelations might seem too coincidental.  But in Greene’s capable hands, these events seem, rather, inevitable.

If you want to well-written, fascinating book to keep you warm on these cold, winter nights, Bloodroot is the book for you.

Review copy provided by publisher.