Review by New York Times Review
THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY brought change to the heart of Appalachia in the 1930s, forcing locals to relocate voluntarily or linger on the land and be removed by their own government. Though the damming of the river would provide electricity and other conveniences across the region, there were many who were not swayed by arguments of the common good and tried to stay, even as the water rose across their fields and toward the houses. Early on in Amy Greene's aching, passionate and vivid new novel, "Long Man," a character stands in the night, surveying all that will be lost to progress. "She had heard about a Depression going on but saw no evidence of it herself. She didn't understand the power company's reasoning. She didn't need electric lights when she could see by the sun and moon. She had the spring and the earth to keep her food from spoiling. She had a washboard for scrubbing clean her dresses. If a person didn't come to depend on material things, it wouldn't hurt to lose them." The title of the novel is translated from the Native American name for the river. Those tribes had inhabited these hills for centuries before being supplanted by ancestors of the hill folk suddenly facing their own diaspora. The T.V.A. is a great boon, perhaps, but it is attended by wrenching upheaval and anguish, doubt and sadness. Greene seems ideally suited to tell this story, to take a slice of Appalachian history and render it as literature. She has the necessary gifts and knows these characters well, inside and out. The novel takes place over three days in the summer of 1936. Most residents of Yuneetah, Tenn., have already abandoned their homes, hoping to find factory work in Detroit, Chicago or Cincinnati, because "nobody could stand alone against the government." Annie Clyde Dodson, however, is still unwilling to surrender, to pack her family up and go. She sees this land as her daughter's inheritance, and can't accept that the future she hoped for is simply no longer possible. Water rises by the minute, hour by hour spilling across familiar fields and lapping the edges of the lightless town. The plot is simple but rich, and provides great suspense. One evening Annie Clyde's husband, James, is trying to persuade her to accept the inevitable and move to Detroit, but in the midst of their argument they notice that their 3-year-old daughter and her dog have disappeared. Annie Clyde saw Amos, the one-eyed drifter, in her field earlier that day and suspects he has taken her child. The hunt for Amos and the girl triggers conflict among the few remaining residents. Amos is the adopted son of old Beulah, who reads bones and has second sight, and will always protect him. He is both better and worse than he is thought to be: "He had no real ideology," Greene writes. "He had no set convictions. He had only his loathing for the men who ran everything." "Long Man" carries the weight of tragedy, but in Greene's hands it does not feel excessively tragic. "The dam would stand in memory, but not of their individual lives," thinks a character who's sure they will all be forgotten. Even though the overall ending for Yuneetah has been written by history, this powerful novel proves him wrong. DANIEL WOODRELL'S most recent novel, "The Maid's Version," was published last year.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 6, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Greene's second novel revisits blue-collar Appalachia with the same haunting lyricism she brought to her magnificent first novel, Bloodroot (2010). In the summer of 1936, the Tennessee Valley Authority has determined to dam the river Long Man and flood the town of Yuneetah in eastern Tennessee in the name of progress. Just one day remains before the town will be flooded, and most of the citizens have been evacuated. But there are a handful of people who refuse to leave the land that has been in their familiesfor generations. Among them is Annie Clyde Dodson, who longs for her three-year-old daughter, Gracie, to grow up on her beautiful mountaintop farm. As a storm starts to rage, Gracie goes missing, and the sheriff, as well as Annie's few remaining neighbors, must cover miles of wild country in search of the toddler. In addition, the mysterious Amos, an orphan who grew up in Yuneetah, has returned for one final act of vengeance. Greene, with searing eloquence, seems to channel the frustrations of generations of rural poor in this stark indictment of a soulless government hell-bent on destroying a long-standing community. Her stunning insight into a proud and insular people is voiced with cold clarity and burning anger.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Like a classical myth or a painting by Thomas Hart Benton, Greene's second novel (after Bloodroot), set in the summer of 1936, transforms a period of cataclysmic history into a gorgeous, tragic tale filled with heroes and heroines. After the Tennessee Valley Authority builds a dam to electrify rural Appalachia, the river that folks have always called Long Man rises a little more with every turn of the page, and most of the families in the town of Yuneetah, Tenn., are long gone, scattered to other cities to take up factory jobs. In days, the hardscrabble farm fields they abandoned will be overcome by water, and Annie Clyde Dodson's family farm, too, will end up at the bottom of the lake. Only Annie Clydewon't leave; she's determined to hold out so that her three-year-old daughter Gracie can inherit her ancestral land. But Gracie disappears with her dog Rusty during a terrible storm, the floodwaters rising by the hour. Only a few-the sheriff, Annie Clyde's aunt Silver, and the mysterious drifter Amos, among them-are left to help Annie Cylde and Gracie's dad, James, search through the tangle of sodden woods and fields already knee high in muck. Greene's enormous talent animates the voices and landscape of East Tennessee so vividly, and creates such exquisite tension, that the reader is left as exhausted and devastated as the characters in this unforgettable story. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In three days, the Tennessee Valley Authority will flood the valley of a poor farming community. Almost everyone has moved, but one strong-willed woman is determined to stay. When her beloved three-year-old daughter goes missing, though, a frantic search begins and expands to include a number of unlikely allies. Narrator Dale Dickey has the perfect voice for this story, a raw-boned blend of Southern, mountain, and just plain worn-out Depression-era exhaustion. Along with the suspenseful plot, Greene's writing is lyrical and poetic while remaining brutally honest about the struggles of the people of this place and time. Verdict Highly recommended for fans of Appalachian fiction, historical fiction set in the 1930s, and readers who enjoy novels that firmly set a time and place in their mind.-J. Sara Paulk, Houston Cty. P.L., Perry, GA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Crises abound in a small Tennessee town in 1936, just days before a dam is set to flood it. The Tennessee Valley Authority was designed to help modernize the state during the Great Depression, bringing electricity to its rural regions. But the TVA only spells destruction for the Eastern Tennessee town of Yuneetah, and Greene's excellent second novel (Bloodroot, 2010) focuses on the holdouts there who haven't yet left or who refuse to leave. Chief among them are husband and wife James and Annie Clyde, who'd been arguing over a move to bustling Michigan but who shift their energies once their 3-year-old daughter, Gracie, goes missing. The lead suspect in her disappearance is Amos, a one-eyed Yuneetah native who's spent much of his life as a drifter connected to violent protests against government projects like the TVA. Greene repeatedly likens Amos to a force of nature, like the Long Man River that runs through the dying town, and the novel thoughtfully touches on the question of how much place shapes our personalities. If there is a way to write about this milieu--Southern, prewar, thick with family and history--without evoking William Faulkner, Greene hasn't pursued it. But her long paragraphs, sinuous and tonally mythic, aren't slavish Faulkner imitations either, and Gracie's disappearance, alongside Amos' cat-and-mouse game with authorities, gives the novel a welcome propulsion. (The fates of both characters, once revealed, are harrowing, riveting reading.) Two older sisters in town provide windows into the folkways about to be submerged, while a local police officer and TVA functionary represent the transformations to come, but Greene's imagination is too fecund to make these characters mere symbols. Her novel fully inhabits the contradictions within each character and the ironies inherent in destroying a place in the name of progress. A smart and moody historical novel that evokes the best widescreen Southern literature.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
