Silas House

This is a beautifully written story of love and family, guilt and forgiveness. The prologue and epilogue are written in third person, while the body of the story is narrated by Vine, a Cherokee descended from a group who hid during Removal and remained in their Kentucky mountains. Now the mid-1910s, big-man in town is ousting the Redbud Camp Cherokees without so much as payment for their land, taking over their mountain to build his mansion. Saul is sent to work on clearing the building show more area, when he meets and falls in love with Vine.

I loved this book. I’m trying to work out why it spoke to me so. It’s not historically significant, or deep, or fancy in any way. It is written in very simple language. “And then I knowed that I was fooling myself. The rains of spring would not wash away what had already been done.” Simple, but with such beauty and clarity. The setting, though we still see it through Vine’s simple words, is just as lovely to my mind as it is to her eyes. You come to know her places and what she thinks of them, as if you are there, too. Her garden, the path between their home and her mother-in-law’s home, the cooling river, her old home-place – the scenery was lovingly painted. The characters were true to their time, their thoughts and motives believable. And so well described that you could see them in your mind and know how they felt. Perhaps it’s the Cherokee in me, or the fact that I spent my youthful summers in a place very similar to the area described, or that I’ve known and loved my share of Esmes. I don’t know why; I just loved it!

Mr. House’s creation has a lot to like. I liked both mothers; I liked the local midwife. Not sure about the violets. Where I’m from, violets bloom in the early spring, and then just a month or two. They wouldn’t be there for the picking on a hot, sultry day. Maybe they grow a different kind in Kentucky; hope so, ‘cause I don’t want to not like anything about this book. But I forgive him if he got that wrong, because everything else felt so right, including speaking a woman’s voice – he even got that right. If you happen on this review, please go check out the CK for quotations from Parchment of Leaves so you can read some snippets from the pen of Silas House. Then I’m sure you’ll want to read his book yourself.

One of my top four reads this year. I loved it! show less

Part coming-of-age story and part paean to Appalachia, this impressive first novel tells the story of Clay Sizemore, orphaned in a violent act that has left its scars throughout his extended family.

House, who is in fact an Appalachian native, has a keen ear for dialogue and a gift for creating characters who come to life on the page. He treads a fine line through the practices of the Pentecostal church, which influences virtually everyone in the book, whether they are practitioners or not. show more And the music of the region is practically a character in its own right.

If there's a flaw here, it's that there's not a lot of internal tension. The characters go along in their day-to-day lives and even the underlying love story unfolds without a lot of high drama. The few violent confrontations, driven by alcohol, drugs, and jealousy erupt, play out, and mostly disappear quickly, even though they drive much of the plot.

The quilt metaphor is handled nicely, but so subtly that if it wasn't played up in the title, it might have gone largely unnoticed.

I doubt this book is going to change anyone's life, but it's a nice read and would make a good book club selection. show less

Thank you to LibraryThing and Crooked Lane Books for the free ebook, Dead Man Blues by S.D. House, in exchange for an honest review. Although it took a little while for me to become invested in the story, it definitely picked up and I really had to find out who did it! Maybe this is due to my impatience (and age) with the slow revealing of family ties/histories. However, the descriptive writing of the time period, the people and the setting were so well done that it completely immerses the show more reader. The characters were also well developed and an interesting bunch! There are many twists and plenty of suspects! The tension between two former best friends (yes, there was an affair involved) having to work together added interest throughout the novel. The MC was very likable as he discovers many things about himself concerning work, friendships and love. Given the ending, I’m wondering if there might be another book? show less

Co-authors Silas House and Neela Vaswani join forces in this epistolary middle-grade novel, exploring, through their characters' correspondence with one another, the differences and commonalities in the lives of a Kentucky coal-miner's son and the daughter of recent Indian immigrants, studying to become citizens in New York City. Although River Dean Justice and Meena Joshi come from different places, and lead very different lives, they also share many of the same experiences, from coping show more with the absence of a father, whose work has taken him far away, to feeling just a little bit out-of-step with those around them. When tragedy strikes in both of their lives, their letters to one another provide an avenue for expression, and their strong friendship an important source of strength.

Chosen as our September selection over in The Children's Fiction Book-Club to which I belong, Same Sun Here touches upon many important themes, from family relationships and the stresses put upon those relationships by separation, to environmental stewardship and the terrible consequences when people ignore their responsibility of care, for both earth and people. Unlike some readers, I really appreciated the fact that politics, whether one defines that in terms of elections or of personal activism, was featured so prominently here. Children, after all, live in the same political world as the rest of us, and are affected by many of the same economic and social factors as adults, so it was good to see some recent issues - the 2008 presidential election, mountain top removal coal-mining in Appalachia, rent-control and abusive landlords in New York City - being depicted in a book intended for them. I also really appreciated the format of the book itself, and think that having two different authors pen the two protagonists' letters was an inspired choice, leading to believably different voices for River and Meena.

All in all, this was a strong book, one with engaging characters and an always interesting, often poignant story. I came away with a desire to read more by both authors. show less