METEORS IN AUGUST - Hardcover

Thon, Melanie Rae

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067083064X ISBN 13: 9780670830640

Publisher: Viking, 1991

Synopsis

Charged by lyrical prose and vivid evocations of a more-than-human world, Meteors in August proves itself a magnificent debut, a tale of despair and salvation in all their many forms

Lizzie Macon is seven when her father drives a Native American named Red Elk out of their valley and comes home with blood on his clothes. The following year, her older sister, Nina, cuts her head from every family photograph and runs away with Red Elk’s son and their unborn child. Nina’s actions have consequences no one could have predicted: jittery reverberations of violence throughout the isolated northern Montana mill town of Willis. Sparks of racial prejudice and fundamentalist fever flare until one scorching August when three cataclysmic events change the town—and Lizzie’s family—forever.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Bullied wives, maimed men, haters of Indians, exhibitionists, petty preachers and rebel congregations are among the northern Montana townspeople who grope for individual deliverance in the background of this exceptionally promising debut novel. Misfit Lizzie, its adolescent narrator, escapes her older sister's predicament--a teenage pregnancy that caused her to run away when Lizzie was still a child--and concludes: "I figured a girl wasn't going to get too many breaks in her life and that I'd better find a way to show God I was grateful." She is guided by the local Holy Roller ("Jesus might be kind, but God and Mrs. Graves were only merciful"), but observes that fire-and-brimstone goodness does not stave off catastrophe. Rather, she learns not to reject sin but to forgive it. These themes might seem syrupy in less able hands, but Thon's steely-eyed, sharpshooting prose brings both urgency and spontaneity to her characters and their conflicts. Lizzie's feelings of rejection, her determination and her perceptions of the stultifying rural squalor are wrenchingly palpable, and Thon is clearly a writer to watch.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is a tough yet elegantly written novel about a girl growing up in a small town in Montana. For Lizzie Macon, life is difficult, both physically and emotionally; she receives little kindness from her parents, community, or classmates. Somehow the days pass, and the ebb and flow doesn't much affect the town, until one August, when a fiery and horrific trio of events occur: the local saloon burns to the ground, a mildly retarded and much misunderstood neighborhood boy hangs himself, and a small plane falls out of the sky and sinks to the bottom of the local lake, drowning the young girl trapped inside. The turmoil of these events has an odd, disquieting effect on the townspeople, as well as on Lizzie herself, but ultimately it serves to wake her up and make her realize that she's in control of her own life. Written with a refreshing and unique directness, this novel is a pleasure to read.
- Jessica Grim, Univ. of California at Berkeley Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067083064X
• ISBN 13: 9780670830640
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288