Unfollowers

by Leigh Ann Ruggiero

Overview

Winner of the 2023 National Indie Excellence Award in Multicultural Fiction
Winner of the 2022 Forward INDIES Silver Award for Literary Fiction
Finalist of the 2023 National Indie Excellence Award in New Fiction
Finalist of the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award
Barb Matheson doesn’t fit in: not on the Standing Rock Reservation where her mother was born; not at the mission in rural Ethiopia where she grew up; and certainly not at the Pennsylvania church where her husband preaches. Expansive and lyrical, Unfollowers is a tale of religious angst, unrequited love, and the upheaval of racial and economic privilege. Equally adrift on both sides of the Atlantic, Barb must negotiate the distance between white America and Africa, between the spirituality of her ancestors and the straight tones of evangelicalism, and between rules and grace. When a former lover crashes her daughter’s third birthday party, she’s offered the chance to find her way home to Ethiopia, leaving her to choose between a rote life in America and an improvised life abroad.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625346407
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	03/25/2022
Series:	Juniper Prize for Fiction
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

LEIGH ANN RUGGIERO earned an MFA from the University of Maryland before moving to Montana, where she teaches literature, writing, and film at Great Falls College. She was a finalist for the 2019 Ohio Writers’ Association’s Great Novel Contest.
 

Editorial Reviews

[D]elivers a stunning tale of love and sacrifice . . . Highly recommended for readers of stories that delve into deep waters of faith, values, and the different kinds of love. This debut will appeal to fans of Barbara Kingsolver.”—Library Journal

“This beautiful novel sprawls across space and time, bounces between continents and decades. With a comforting hand, Ruggiero keeps us orientated and engaged. Energetic, stylistically brave, emotionally complex, and gripping—Unfollowers is a singular achievement.”—Gabriel Bump, author of Everywhere You Don’t Belong: A Novel

From the Publisher

03/01/2022

DEBUT Ruggerio's novel, winner of the 2021 Juniper Prize for Fiction, delivers a stunning tale of love and sacrifice in a sweeping tale that spans 35 years. When 13-year-old Barb, the daughter of missionaries in Ethiopia, meets Declan, a pilot with a difficult past, her life becomes enmeshed with his in a way that affects her relationships with her future husband, Ross, as well as her mother and family. Barb leaves Ethiopia to attend college in the United States, where she meets and marries Ross; however, her love for Declan remains strong. Barb loves both men in different ways as she deals with the effects that her rule-following mother has on her. The complicated relationships among Barb, Declan, and Ross will engage readers as they navigate love, faith, and what it means to be true to themselves. Although this novel starts slowly, its raw depiction of Barb and the people in her life will stay with readers long after they put the book down. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers of stories that delve into deep waters of faith, values, and the different kinds of love. This debut will appeal to fans of Barbara Kingsolver.—Tamara Butler

Library Journal