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GodPretty in the Tobacco Field

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A rural Kentucky teenager comes of age in the summer of 1969 in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

Nameless, Kentucky, in 1969 is a hardscrabble community where jobs are few and poverty is a simple fact—just like the hot Appalachian breeze or the pests that can destroy a tobacco field. RubyLyn Bishop is luckier than some. Her God-fearing uncle, Gunnar, has a short fuse and high expectations, but he's given her a good home ever since she was orphaned at the age of five. Yet now a month shy of her sixteenth birthday, RubyLyn itches for more.
Maybe it's something to do with the paper fortunetellers RubyLyn has been making for townsfolk, each covered with beautifully wrought, prophetic drawings. Or perhaps it's because of Rainey Ford, her black neighbor who works alongside her in the tobacco field and with whom she has a kinship—despite the disapproval of others.

RubyLyn's predictions are just wishful thinking, not magic at all, but through them she's imagining life as it could be, away from the prejudice and hardship that ripple through Nameless...
"A voice rich and authentic, steeped in the somber beauty that defines life in the South."—David Joy, author of When These Mountains Burn
"Richardson's brilliant writing made me feel as though I were transported back in time...and actually there witnessing this poignant heartfelt story."—Charles Belfoure, New York Times–bestselling author of The Fallen Architect
"A reader always recognizes when the author has poured her soul into a body of work. [This] is a tender, beautifully written second novel."—Ann Hite, author of the Black Mountain series
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 7, 2016
      Richardson’s (Liar’s Bench) deft second novel paints a picture of the hard life and bright dreams of young RubyLyn Bishop in Nameless, Ky., during the summer of 1969. Fifteen-year-old RubyLyn was orphaned young and is now the charge of her uncle, Gunnar Royal, a man with a harsh and rigid moral code. Henny Stump, her best friend, is so poor that her family resorts to selling their new baby. Her other neighbors, Beau Crockett and his three boys, are trouble. The only bright spots in her life are her secret love of Rainey Ford, her uncle’s field hand, the beautiful paper fortune tellers that she draws and folds, and her hope to win the $200 prize for her lush tobacco plants at the Kentucky State Fair. With the prize money, she plans to move to the big city of Louisville. Facing reality is never as easy as dreaming, but RubyLyn’s will may prove stronger than the grasp of Nameless. Richardson skillfully develops RubyLyn’s plight in this tale steeped in the tobacco hills of Kentucky.

    • Booklist

      March 15, 2016
      Her parents dead, 15-year-old RubyLyn lives with her stern, unbending Uncle Gunnar on their tobacco farm near the small town of Nameless, Kentucky. The year is 1969 and RubyLyn dreams of moving to the city, where she can pursue a career as a professional artist and where she can be free to marry Rainey, her uncle's African American field hand. But how can she make this happen? Her uncle denigrates her art, and, if he knew about her secret feelings for Rainey, he would surely forbid any kind of relationship. And then Rainey is drafted. Setting is everything in this crossover novel of the poverty-stricken region RubyLyn calls home. The reader learns a great deal about the impact of President Johnson's War on Poverty in rural Kentucky and, equally, about the place of women in that society in the late 1960s. Though the novel takes a turn to the soap-operatic as the plot develops, RubyLyn and Rainey remain sympathetic characters for whom readers will wish a happy ending.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

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