Lightningstruck - Softcover

Havird, Ashley Mace

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0881465968 ISBN 13: 9780881465969

Publisher: Mercer University Press, 2016

Synopsis

In May of 1964, eleven-year-old Etta McDaniel's horse is struck by lightning--dead and gone, she hopes--out of her life "as though he'd never come in the first place, bringing with him one catastrophe after another." But Troy, gruesomely scarred, not only survives but seems to have gained supernatural powers, which Etta sets her mind on harnessing in her search for treasure. She is convinced that a find of the sort her hero Heinrich Schliemann unearthed at ancient Troy will set to rights everything suddenly gone wrong in her life: rivalry and betrayal at home and social unrest reaching even her family's farm.

Half-blind and crippled, the horse does lead Etta to treasure--though not to the treasure she dreamed of. Along with her shell-shocked grandfather, the family's African American housekeeper, and the widow of a Mohawk chief, the lightning-struck horse initiates her into the world of "action and liability" as the Civil Rights Movement takes hold in her rural South.

Etta comes to understand that this world was never perfect, with its economy dependent on tobacco and before that on slavery, as excavations on the farm reveal. Once unearthed, the ugly truths of history scar Etta and set her, in a figurative sense, upon the back of the lightning-scarred horse and on the journey of her life.

About this title

About the Author

Ashley Mace Havird grew up on a tobacco farm in South Carolina. She has published three collections of poems, including THE GARDEN OF THE FUGITIVES (2014), which won the 2013 X. J. Kennedy Prize. Her poems and stories have appeared in many journals, including Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. LIGHTNINGSTRUCK, winner of the 2015 Ferrol Sams Award, is her first novel.

Review

"Full of mystery, tension, and the very real and often turbulent history of rural South Carolina, LIGHTNINGSTRUCK is an engrossing and enchanting story."--Tim O'Brien, National Book Award Winner and author of THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

"The voice of Etta McDaniel mesmerizes us from the first sentence to the final page of Ashley Mace Havird's novel, LIGHTNINGSTRUCK. It is an elegantly crafted coming of age story of a girl on the verge of adolescence. Etta's insights about family, friends, her tiny town, and American society in the mid-1960s are beautifully intertwined with her story and that of a mysterious horse that survives a direct hit from lightning. The depth of Etta's tale and its indelible characters makes it a novel for readers of any generation."--Robert L. Pincus, former art critic and books editor of The San Diego Union-Tribune

"What a rich witness of a culture and a world." --Stanley Plumly, author of ORPHAN HOURS and POSTHUMOUS KEATS

"It's rare these days to find a good poet who can also write fine fiction. It turns out Ashley Mace Havird is one of these. I read LIGHTNINGSTRUCK with great pleasure, and felt entirely in the spell of her prose. I won't soon forget Etta McDaniel and her journey." --Richard Bausch, author of THE STORIES OF RICHARD BAUSCH and editor of THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF SHORT FICTION

About this edition

• Publisher: Mercer University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0881465968
• ISBN 13: 9780881465969
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 249