Tiffany McDaniel

In Tiffany McDaniel’s powerful new novel “Betty,” we become privy to the childhood and coming-of-age of the eponymous character. When very young, she moved around with her family, but they settle finally in the hills of southern Ohio. “Betty” is the story of how this young girl deals with the sins which men commit against the girls and women in their families, and how she rises above them, having acquired wisdom beyond her tender years. By turns homespun and horrific, this novel show more carries pride, sorrow, love, malice, and the resilient human spirit, and serves them up to the reader in a memorable, beautiful whole.

Betty is her father’s daughter, through and through. She inherits his dark Cherokee pigment, and he inculcates Native wisdom and understanding in her, particularly as it relates to the significance of the natural world, and how it can heal. Delivered in plain speech and fanciful art, this instruction aligns perfectly with the countrified pallet in which McDaniel paints her tableaux. All dialogue has a rural twang and inflection; and Betty has siblings named Fraya, Trustin, Flossie, and Lint. She suffers racial prejudice in the 1950s and 60s, even to some extent from her mother and sisters, who don’t share her rich coloring.

Women suffer at the hands of the men in their family throughout the novel; Betty witnesses some of it first-hand, and learns of other episodes from her mother. She rails against not only the cruelty and injustice but also she hates the culture of silence enabling and perpetuating the sin. This pall colors and stains the life of this spirited girl; she can’t stand it, and neither can we. Ultimately, Betty delivers herself, wise to so many ways of the world, from this childhood, and ends up meeting a character from McDaniel’s remarkable first novel, “The Summer That Melted Everything.” One wonders if we will hear more of these characters in the future.

Stunningly spirited, unbowed by all she has witnessed, loved dearly by her gentle father, Betty is a hard, determined plug of gristle, a take-no-quarter fighter, and at the same time a fond believer in sweet dreams. She befriends some of the town’s castoffs, and learns something of herself in the process. She can’t help her strong subversive streak, and it might just be the thing that saves her. Betty the character will live in your imagination as it will in mine.

McDaniel has followed up “The Summer That Melted Everything” with a stunning, masterful second effort. In her writing she again shows no fear in displaying all the treachery and predation of her story - she has no mercy and tolerates no nonsense. A little like Betty herself. This author demonstrates a crystal clear vision in this area, and has also shown a very deft hand at drawing characters and family interaction.

Even while steeped in folklore, this is fine, unflinching work. It rewards its reader with a rich, nuanced, well-paced story, with a very, very sympathetic heroine, all set in a memorable picture of rural American life. I urge you to reap these rewards.

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HAPPY PUB DAY (!!!) to dear, dear Betty. What a treasure this novel is. Betty has no peer in my eyes, and Tiffany McDaniel has established herself as a clear and important voice in literature today.

Betty is breathtaking from start to finish and in so many different ways. Firstly, the writing is beautiful. The way she describes the lush landscapes and sprawling setting of the Appalachians is subtly woven throughout the narrative and yet poetically portrayed.

Despite its beauty, this book is show more dark. It digs deep and heavy into the family dynamics of rural Americans in the 1940-70s, and many of the truths revealed are bitter and ugly. While portraying horrifically vivid scenes of rape and incest, the timing of the plot is well-planned. I felt like I was just beginning to sympathize with and become emotionally invested in the characters just as they were starting to break my heart, or have my heart broken for them.

Betty also reveals to us a culture that is vastly underrepresented in the canon of American literature today--that of Cherokee people living out their culture and traditions in the face of extreme discrimination, and how they cling to their roots and to the land for comfort, hope, and provision. Through the character of Dad and his relationship with Betty, we can see how values and traditions of this beautiful culture are passed down through generations, despite the horrific oppression and prejudice that they face in continuing to practice their traditions.

This is a beautiful book. It is an important book, and I am so thankful that Tiffany McDaniel wrote it and that I got to read it.

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for an advance copy of Betty in exchange for an honest review. show less

During the impossibly hot Ohio summer of 1984, a young boy’s presence in a small town catalyzes horrific events which result in splintered families, mob violence, arson, and murder. Debut author Tiffany McDaniel handles all this with assurance and aplomb, such that I’m quite taken aback at the powers displayed in her first attempt. Her very true-to-life first person narrator is a thirteen year-old boy about to grow up in a major hurry, and she places stunning, gratifying eloquence in the show more voice of another boy who seems to know way too much about God and the world. It’s a remarkable achievement.

We learn at the outset that prosecuting attorney (named, curiously enough, Autopsy Bliss) has published a letter inviting the devil to his small town so he can see it for himself. And as suddenly as a pre-adolescent black boy, Sal, shows up, that’s how quickly the summer starts to sizzle and oppress the town. I’m generally put off by parables when reading and the beginning of The Summer that Melted Everything made me cautious. Soon enough, however, the very human events and emotions take over, and any discomfort I’d been feeling melted away. It’s a rich novel, very well conceived, but stunningly well executed.

The setting here reminds one of Faulkner - the small town with its dusty lanes, the idiosyncratic characters, the timeless human traits of prejudice, ignorance, and hatred. The author bolsters and enriches her story by grounding it firmly in the here and now, its murderous horrors all too real and familiar. The emblematic character names and chilling events take on a fuller, heavier significance once the true events are known. And Ms. McDaniel deftly upends our beliefs and expectations for these characters.

I urge you to take up The Summer that Melted Everything from a pure reading enjoyment standpoint. But there’s another good reason: you’ll want to make Tiffany McDaniel’s acquaintance as soon as possible. I can reassure you of this new novelist’s talent and vision.

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In a dark, dark book (with a pretty cover), there was a dark, dark story about the dark, dark events witnessed by a dark-skinned girl. Boy howdy, was this a depressing experience - but after a slow start, I was completely gripped and also couldn't stop thinking about the characters when I wasn't reading. Racism, sexism, abuse, incest, animal cruelty, and more deaths per novel since the days of Elizabeth Gaskell. Not a story for the faint-hearted!

Betty Carpenter is born to a white mother and show more a Cherokee father and grows up in a small-minded town called Breathed (Breath-ed) in Ohio during the 1960s. Children (and teachers) at school make her life hell for inheriting her father's colouring while at home her family of two sisters and three brothers is being destroyed by secrets from the past.

To start with, Betty's story reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird (if told from Tom Robinson's perspective) - there are even one or two similar scenes like the 'cursed' Peacock house where the Carpenters live and the old woman who teaches Betty a valuable lesson. But Breathed is far, far uglier than Maycomb, turning this novel into a Southern Gothic nightmare with bizarre characters, in both name and nature - like the woman who wears a mask because she believes she has been disfigured by something she once witnessed - and apocalyptic events including kamikaze birds!

I really felt for Betty, who has to survive both her own torment and also bear the burdens of her family too, keeping the secrets of others while struggling with her own guilt. Only her father Landon is a positive influence, weaving fantastical myths and trying to promote pride in their shared Cherokee heritage. I felt sorry for Betty's mother, too, until one particularly harrowing scene of animal cruelty nearly made me throw up. Representing abuse through fictional characters is disturbing but hurting fictional animals is just gratuitous.

There is a lot packed into the story and the characters which still applies - Betty's principal manages to encapsulate attitudes towards women and people of colour which hasn't really changed since the 1960s: 'Women in pants lost your people your land,' he tells her. When she wears shorts to school because boys keep looking up her skirt, she is told that girls can't wear pants which draw the attention to the crotch but she is also to blame for not dressing 'modestly' and tempting the 'good sons' of the community with her body. Betty is also accused of stealing and caned with no evidence of the crime.

What it boiled down to was a frenzied hope that there was more to life than the reality around us. Only then could we claim a destiny we did not feel cursed to.

I loved how Betty turned her father's stories into a love of writing and capturing the truth on paper, burying her mother's and sisters' stories in jars until ready to face the heartbreak in her family. Words are the only defence she has against the world. Betty is somehow an inspiring figure in a depressing blend of social commentary and grotesque fantasy.

Take a deep breath and dive in but take a break every hundred pages - if possible - with a lighter antidote! show less