Annie, a businesswoman in her own right, the wife of a man has committed horrible secret deeds, mother of five children, one dead by suicide, two sons and two estranged daughters has to face the reasons for the estrangement. She has to dig deep to do what it takes to feed her daughters, to save them and make a life for them. With a drunk for a husband, they live in squalor and they are starving. Gertrude is a battered wife and mother of four young daughters. Three points of view skillfully depicted. Spera introduces us to three women, each an unforgettable character in their own way. This is rural South Carolina in 1924, devastated by boll weevils, hurricanes, the depressive economic time that the South experienced even before the Great Depression, but there are other struggles. I don’t use the word atmospheric very often, but it’s hard to not describe this book in that way. “It’s easier to kill a man than a gator, but it takes the same kind of wait.” What a fantastic line and what an amazing debut novel. Once in a while the opening sentence of a story is enough for me to know that I’ll be taken with it.
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