Lick Creek: A Novel

Emily Jenkins lives in a home with her mother on Lick Creek in West Virginia. Her father and brother had died in the mines. Her mother was in the depths of despair. Now electricity is coming to the area. The surveyors mark the route the line is to take, but it comes too close to her home for Emily's taste. She altered the route. One day one of the workers falls from a pole near the house and is severely injured. Emily's mom Ada takes the man into her home, regaining a purpose in her life. It brings other changes as well. This is a beautiful novel with realistic characters and rich images of the landscape and events.

As a child, Joseph had caught his father's passion for tinkering and electricity. But father had to leave home to find work in America. Joseph eventually follows him there, but finds his father broken in spirit, the immigrant experience having beaten him. The time is right, though, for Joseph.

In mountainous, rural Falls County, West Virginia, Emily Jenkins lives with her mother in a poor mining community. Mad at the world, Emily meets Joseph when he is working on the rural electrification project nearby.

I wasn't crazy about this story. Parts of it were ok; but some parts elicited 'good grief's. Except for Joseph, I didn't like the characters; they didn't feel real. The setting, however, was beautifully written. It seemed like a great show more premise for a story, but the execution didn't grab me. show less

Don't hurry through this book, even though it's tempting, or you will miss a lot of the beautiful imagery. The author uses words like a painter uses a brush.