Virginia Reeves

Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves is a highly recommended story of pride, bitterness, resentment, and guilt set in the 1920s.

Roscoe T Martin is at heart an electrician, a line man. He was working for the Alabama Power Company when he met and married Marie, who was a teacher. When Marie inherits her father's farm, Roscoe has to give up the job he loves to do a job he detests - farming. We know from the opening sentence that all will not go well, that a man will die. We also know that show more resentment is already deeply rooted in both Roscoe and Marie.

Roscoe sees the power lines running near the farm and decides that, with the help of Wilson, a black man whose family manages the farm, he can set up his own lines and siphon off a little electricity to the farm. Roscoe knows that this will help with the farming and ultimately help the farm prosper. And his scheme works for a time. The farm does prosper and the tension in his relationship with Marie and their son, Gerald, eases.

But then the sheriff comes to their door one night and Roscoe is arrested for the death of a man who was electrocuted when checking out Roscoe's illegal lines and for the theft of the power. Wilson is also arrested. At this point Marie completely abandons her husband, blaming him for anything and everything that pops into her mind, past and present. She supports Wilson. Both men are convicted in separate trials and Roscoe is sent to Kilby prison to serve a twenty year sentence.

The narrative alternates between Roscoe's experiences in prison and those of life with Marie in the past and on the farm. Roscoe is clinging to the idea that Marie still loves him. He writes to her, even though she does not write now and did not attend or support him during his trial. His life in prison is brutal and violent, but he has his work in the dairy, at the prison library, and as a "dog boy." There are times when he dreams he is talking to a younger Marie while in prison.

Just as Roscoe was bitter about moving to the farm, Marie has a load of resentment and bitterness that she has been nurturing and building for years. Her bitterness overtakes her and she spreads it to her son. Roscoe did not intend to harm anyone - and the electricity did help the farm prosper - but once Roscoe is imprisoned, Marie is back to struggling and is unable to see beyond her pain. There is a world of pain in these people and much of the suffering is almost self-inflicted, although much is also brought to bear on Roscoe by others.

The writing is incredible in this novel. Reeves has a beautiful way with some of her descriptions which are almost too elegant for some of the harsh realities in her novel. Work Like Any Other sits firmly on the literary historical fiction shelf. (There is also quite a bit about electricity contained in Roscoe's musings.) The redemption in the description is found at the end, but perhaps not what you'd be expecting. It was a satisfying end for me, but this is still a deeply sad story that leaves a feeling of melancholy after you've read it.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Scribner for review purposes.

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This historical novel set in rural central Alabama in the 1920s and 1930s begins with tragedy, as the reader learns that a man has been killed close to a farm where Roscoe Martin lives with his wife Marie, who inherited the land after the death of her father, and their son Gerald. The farm is struggling, as the meager profits from the crops aren't enough to pay for farmhands to harvest it, and Roscoe, a trained electrician who dislikes farmwork, is embittered about the seemingly hopeless show more situation he finds himself in, and the relationship between he and Marie and Gerald becomes progressively more distant, although he loves her dearly.

Electricity had not yet come to homes and most businesses in rural Alabama in the early 1920s, and farming techniques have not changed much since the years preceding the Civil War. However, high voltage power lines were starting to be run through these areas by Alabama Power, and Roscoe comes up with a plan to provide the farm with electricity, which will allow the crops to be harvested more quickly and less costly. He enlists the help of Wilson Grice, the African American manager of the farm, who lives on the property in a shack with his family and has worked there since he was a boy, who reluctantly agrees to help Roscoe. The plan is initially successful, as the farm becomes very profitable and the relationship between Roscoe and Marie is reinvigorated, but tragedy results several years later, resulting in the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Roscoe and Wilson.

The novel alternates between the past and shifting present, with Roscoe's first person accounts of his life before and during his sentence in Kilby Prison near the state capital of Montgomery interspersed between the third person stories about Marie, Gerald, and Wilson's wife Moa. Roscoe is disheartened by his fate, and to a lesser extent by what has happened to Wilson, who was a less than willing accomplice to the crime but, as a black man in 1920s Alabama, is certain to face a much more severe sentence in prison.

Roscoe's personal reflections and experiences form the backbone of the novel, which is supported by the stories and viewpoints of its main characters. Although he is vilified by Marie, Moa and their children, Roscoe is neither a fully despicable nor a heroic character, and the book's author likewise portrays the other characters as complex, flawed, and all too human.

Tension progressively builds throughout the book, as each character's secrets are uncovered and their fates are revealed, and I found the ending to be surprising and shattering.

Work Like Any Other is a remarkable novel, especially since it is Virginia Reeves' debut. I was completely engrossed in the story and its characters, who will stay with me for a long time to come. This book is the first one I've read so far that is completely worthy of inclusion in this year's Booker Prize longlist, and is one of the best American novels I've read this decade. I look forward to hearing more from this sensitive and talented author. show less

It is the 1920s in Alabama and Roscoe T. Martin loves working for the power company, stringing lines to bring electricity into homes and factories. However, when his father-in-law dies, his wife, Marie, convinces him to give this up and take over her family’s farm. Things are not going well until he decides to illegally hook the farm up to electricity with the aid of Wilson, the farm’s African American manager. As a result, the farm thrives but when a power company worker discovers their show more theft and dies investigating, both Martin and Wilson are arrested and sentenced, Martin to prison and Wilson, because he is black, to the mines, a fate even worse. Marie blames Roscoe, not only for the crime but for Wilson’s fate and she refuses to write or visit nor will she allow their son to have any contact. The narrative is divided between Roscoe in the first person and the third person with other characters. The story also alternates between past and present.

In prison, Roscoe has several jobs including in the dairy and working with the tracker dogs. But it is his work in the library that brings him the most satisfaction helping prisoners learn to read and is the greatest cause of problems and pain as many prisoners and guards resent what they see as his sense of superiority. This leads to some severe consequences for him.

Work Like Any Other is by author Virginia Reeves. I didn’t find out until after I had read it that this was her debut novel – this would have been an impressive novel under any circumstances but as a debut, it is astonishing. Reeves brings the south of the 1920s to life with all its racism, violence, and hardships. The writing is beautiful, the story is extremely well-written and compelling, and the characters are fully drawn as real people with strengths and flaws who the reader can recognize and empathize with. Reeves clearly cares about them and so the reader does as well. This novel is haunting and heartbreaking and will leave you wanting more.

This is a story of guilt and redemption, a subject that could easily cross the line to melodrama with a lesser writer. Yet, Reeves never loses sight of the story or its intent. It is the kind of book that will engage you from beginning to end and remain with you long after. If this is a debut novel, I can’t wait to see what Reeves does next show less

I spent my recent unenviable week off not only in New York, not only in my house, but sequestered in my un-air-conditioned living room with piles of furniture and five cabin-feverish animals while my kitchen floor was replaced. I couldn’t get much of anything constructive done, but I could at least read, and what I read, I loved: this book. Set in 1920s Alabama, it tracks a decade in the life of Roscoe T Martin, an electrician who accidentally electrocutes a man in his efforts to bring show more power to his wife’s family farm and ends up serving time for manslaughter in Kilby Correctional Facility. Reeves touches on serious subjects without ever being heavy-handed: race—Roscoe’s crime also implicates his farmhand Wilson, who is leased to work the mines rather than being sent to prison—the differences between guilt and conscience; forgiveness; how a marriage goes bad; and, most important, work: the degrees and compromises between loving the work you choose and accepting the work that is chosen for you.

Her portraits of complex characters are subtle and compassionate, and she gets bonus DTDD (does the dog die) points for not inflicting hardship on a good, good hound dog, which would have been a lesser writer’s easy catharsis—I was nervous for the last 25 pages thinking that was surely going to happen. The book is up for a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and on the Man Booker long list, and actually reminded me a bit of Paul Harding’s Tinkers, another lovely exploration of the kindness of good work (which also ran off with some big honors—the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2010, as well as the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize). This one is highly recommended, and it turned out better (so far) than my kitchen floor. show less