Dreadful Wind & Rain - Softcover

Gilliam, Diane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597097497 ISBN 13: 9781597097499

Publisher: Red Hen Press, 2017

Synopsis

Once upon a time, there lived a girl whose story was not her own. . .

So the story goes: Neglected and abused by her family, eclipsed by her elder and more beautiful sister, a young girl longs for happily-ever-after, for something, someone to rescue her. She is soon swept away into the next chapter of her life: marriage―a promising world mirroring Old Testament stories and fairy tale traditions. But loving just anyone and living the age-old “ever-after” narrative, as it turns out, fails to bring true happiness after all. Dragged down by a destructive marriage, her sister’s continued manipulations, and the growing weight of roles and expectations created by others at her back, she must choose between continuing in her familiar, complacent life, or boldly breaking free―and finally making her own way.

Named for an Appalachian murder ballad in which a girl is drowned by her sister, this lyrical fairy tale unseats expectations for what it means to live a fairy tale life, revealing the powerful force that comes from stripping away the traditional roles and beginning to write a story all your own.

About this title

About the Author:

Diane Gilliam is the author of three previous collections of poetry: Kettle Bottom (2004), One of Everything (2003), and Recipe for Blackberry Cake (chapbook, 1999). She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Ohio State University. She has received an Individual Artist Grant from the Ohio Arts Council, the Chaffi n Award for Appalachian Writing, Th e Ohioana Library Association Poetry Book of the Year Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She is the most recent recipient of the $50,000 Gift of Freedom literary award and lives in Akron, OH.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Leah Will Say Nothing

my father said, when Jacob enters
the tent, until it is accomplished.
I did not believe it would be
accomplished. What thief
does not know trickery when it comes
courting, hands full of daughters,
and sheep, and savoury meat?
Yet he came into the tent in the dark,
full of intention and heat. My body
would not have it, my gorge
rose against him, and I said,

             

Jacob.

Straightway he began to rage and wring,
flail and hit, twist my hair around his fist
to hold me. He hurt me, however he could
he hurt me, like gutting one of my father’s sheep
with no thought of the life,
only the meat.

                           Then in the morning,
great weeping and wailing and beating
of breasts, the show for Rachel.
Jacob and my father dealing, Mother
comforting Rachel.

                                   My body wept
and wept, it could not stop knowing.
No eyes followed me from the tent
to the well. The knife was sharp
and hard but finally, I could not.
With my eyes, I stared
at the four of them, eating now
outside the tent, and with my mouth
I cursed them
              as I keened                           and the knife                                         sawed off my hair.

About this edition

• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1597097497
• ISBN 13: 9781597097499
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96