An indelible love story set in the foothills of Appalachia about two very different people navigating the entanglements of class and identify in an America coming apart at the seams-a stunning debut novel that marks the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college in exchange, for which he is permitted to take a writing course.
Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks-a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma-who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants-struggles to understand Owen's fraught relationship with family and home.
Exquisitely written; expertly crafted; dazzling in its precision, restraint, and depth of feeling, Groundskeeping is a novel of haunting power and grace from a prodigiously gifted young writer.
