Blood Clay - Softcover

Nieman, Valerie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1935708228 ISBN 13: 9781935708223

Publisher: Press 53, 2011

Synopsis

Blood Clay tells the story of Tracey Gaines, who has moved to rural Saul County, North Carolina, to escape the wreckage of a divorce and becomes a teacher at an alternative school. She devotes herself to renovating an old farmhouse but finds she can't as easily build connections in this new place. When the community splits, she finds an ally in Dave Fordham, a native son who struck out for new opportunities, only to face his own trauma and a forced return home. Elizabeth Stuckey-French says, "Val Nieman has written what is destined to become a classic novel of Southern life."

About this title

From the Author:

Blood Clay was honored with the 2012 Eric Hoffer Award in General Fiction, and was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Prize.

From the Back Cover:

"Blood Clay is both a tense, plot-driven story about complicated issues of race and guilt, and a meditation on solitude, history, and ways of living. The writing is wonderfully fluid, visual, and vivid, but above all these felicities of style, I'm most impressed by Valerie Nieman's candid treatment of difficult subject matter and the broadness of her canvas. It is thoughtful, brave, intelligent." -- Jane Alison, The Sisters Antipodes and The Love-Artist

"Blood Clay is a profoundly moving and beautifully written novel about a community torn apart by tragedy. Valerie Nieman is a writer of remarkable talent, and she has given us a book that, once read, will be hard for any reader to forget." -- Ron Rash, Serena

"Blood Clay has it all. The novel's audacious and gripping plot begins with a shotgun-blast of a scene in which a horrible dog attack sends reverberations through a small North Carolina town and the rest of the book. Val Nieman has written what is destined to become a classic novel of Southern life. I love this book." -- Elizabeth Stuckey-French, The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

 "There's violence here, and steamy sex, and strangeness aplenty, but Valerie Nieman's Blood Clay is no rural geekshow. This is a mature novel, full of living, breathing beings from whose passionate lives it is impossible to turn away. Books this fine are very rare indeed."
-- Pinckney Benedict, Town Smokes and Miracle Boy

About this edition

• Publisher: Press 53
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1935708228
• ISBN 13: 9781935708223
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 206