Bloodroot: A Novel - Hardcover

Aaron Roy Even

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312265611 ISBN 13: 9780312265618

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2000

Synopsis

Aaron Roy Even's startling, imagistic debut takes its cue from a true event: In 1936, in a small town near Charlottesville, Virginia, an aging black caretaker and his sister shot dead a white sheriff acting on orders to turn them off their land.

In Bloodroot, Even explores the circumstances leading up to this violent standoff and the tragedy that followed as seen through the eyes of Elsa, a young, white county employee fresh out of school and filled with aspiration and illusion, and those of Wesley, the aging black caretaker of a vanished family's estate.

While Elsa struggles to retain her authority and self-respect, Wesley is haunted by past concessions and his sister's attachment to the land. When he stands in the way of a proposed turpentine plant by refusing the county's purchase offer, both Elsa and Wesley find themselves moving relentlessly toward an end neither wants to reach.

The novel's title is taken from the flower. Native to Virginia, its tie to the land is such that its roots bleed red when cut.

Bloodroot marks the powerful debut of a gifted writer.

About this title

About the Author

Aaron Roy Even was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Herndon, Virginia. In 1995, he received an M.F.A in fiction writing from the University of Virginia, where he studied under a Henry Hoyns Fellowship. His first novel, Bloodroot, won the 1999 AWP/Thomas Dunne Books Novel Award. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife, Monica.

From Publishers Weekly

The real-life murder of a small-town sheriff by the middle-aged black caretaker of a Virginia estate in 1936 serves as the inspiration for Even's rather listless debut novel, winner of the 1999-2000 AWP-Thomas Dunne Books Award. The title refers to a flower, native to Virginia, that bleeds from the roots when cut from its soil; the same fate threatens to befall William Wesley and his sister, Cora, who have been the estate's sole caretakers for many years and now are being forced to leave their land to make room for a new turpentine plant. Although their legal claim to the property is tenuous at best (the owner's widow, Mrs. Peers, left it to them on her deathbed), Wesley and Cora have continually refused the county's offers to buy the holding. Elsa Childs, the young government representative, fails to convince the siblings to sell, and as the stakes grow higher, and Wesley and Cora hire a (shady) attorney to take their case, it is only a matter of time before the law intervenes. The author succeeds only intermittently in building dramatic tension toward that climactic standoff. Wesley's tales of life with the Peers and his previous job stripping pines paint a picture of a man quietly smoldering under repeated humiliation. ("All my life," he tells Elsa during one of their confrontations, "every time I thought something was mine, a white man came and took it.") But at every turn the story is bogged down with wooden dialogue and overdetermined scenes. Wesley is bound to lose his battle with the government, but his steely determination is compelling, and his voice is the only one to approach true distinction. The other characters hereACora, her boyfriend TJ, Sheriff Montgomery, Elsa's father and even Elsa herselfAserve as little more than foils. (Oct.) FYI: The craft of turpentining is central to another current novel, Josephine Humphreys's Nowhere Else on Earth.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312265611
• ISBN 13: 9780312265618
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272