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A dazzling first novel about four generations of fear and longing in the deep South Who're your people, girl?" It's the song of the South, the big question, persistent and unforgiving. Helene Strickland, daughter of Lafayette County, Arkansas, and lately of the Northeast, doesn't have an answer. Instead, she has memories riddled with half-truths, stories heard in fits and starts, a family history from a family that doesn't know its own past.
In the steamy August of 1976, Helene returns home for her aunt's funeral determined to learn the truth, but her probing yields more questions than answers: Why did her grandmother, Liberty, a cotton picker turned saloon owner, have no name until she was fourteen? Why does Queen Ester, Helene's mother, dress like a child, talk to no one, and refuse to see her own daughter? And who was Chess, a man with a terror of water, a man like a honey trap who drew the women and then destroyed them?
In a mesmerizing narrative, April Reynolds seamlessly weaves past and present, intricate flashbacks and interlaced stories to produce an epic novel of one family maimed by the deepest wounds of history. Rich with legend, poetry, and historic events, Knee Deep in Wonder captures the complex humanity of black Southern life.
From Knee Deep in Wonder:
Sweets was a drifter, twenty years old with no luggage or steady job. By 1914, he had traveled from Tennessee to as far as Oklahoma and Arizona, claiming to have taught the great Bill Pickett everything he knew. Any grandmother could see he was no good, but who could tell that to a girl of seventeen with no people of her own? She heard him first, whistling lightly in the full-grown corn—the sound pricked her ear and she stood up, pushing apart the tall stalks; then she saw him, strolling toward her, his jacket tucked beneath his arm, the corn seeming to move out of his way. He came closer and she dropped the basket she carried, swaying at his nearness. When he stood only a pace away, he sang her hello. Her laughter made him bolder and he took her hand, rubbing her thumb. "Who is you?"
She thought and thought, unsure of what to say, waiting for him to see the blank space of her dilemma and fill it with the name of an old lover, perhaps.
"Girl, you hear me? What's your name?"
She looked past his shoulder. "Lord, Lord, Lord," she panted. She waited for an answer that would not break her heart or her back. Then she had it. Like a ripe peach, ready to drop, the name fell into her lap, beautiful, free of soft spots. The sound of her name almost made her knees buckle.
"Liberty, my name is Liberty."
Anonymous
Posted August 20, 2004
The cover of the hardback didn't grab my attention. The cover of the softback did. I brought the softback and started reading it right away. After reading a few pages, the title kept coming to me. I had the hardback a while but never read it because of the cover. BIG MISTAKE!!! This is one of the best books I've read in a while. I couldn't put it down but didn't want it to end. The way she told this story was awesome. I kept looking back at the author and I wondered, how could she write this. I expected this story to come from a much older person. I am looking forward to her next book and I've already told several friends that they MUST read this one.
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Overview
A dazzling first novel about four generations of fear and longing in the deep South Who're your people, girl?" It's the song of the South, the big question, persistent and unforgiving. Helene Strickland, daughter of Lafayette County, Arkansas, and lately of the Northeast, doesn't have an answer. Instead, she has memories riddled with half-truths, stories heard in fits and starts, a family history from a family that doesn't know its own past.
In the steamy August of 1976, Helene ...