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About
Set in rural North Carolina between the Civil War and World War I, Love and Lament chronicles the Hartsoe family's extraordinary hardships and misfortunes. Mary Bet, the youngest of nine children, was born the same year the first railroad arrived in their county. As she comes of age during the South's reconstruction and industrialization, she must learn to overcome her family's curse: the deaths of her mother and siblings, a deaf and damaged older brother, and her father's growing insanity and rejection of God. In the rich tradition of Southern gothic literature, John Milliken Thompson transports the reader back in time through brilliant characterization and historical details to explore what it means to be a woman charting her own destiny in a rapidly evolving world dominated by men.
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Reviews
"The changing South looms over the narrative, as the economy shifts from agrarian to industrial and racism warps the civic character. But Thompson has taken pains not to let history intrude too much: this is a more intimate narrative, a study of one womans reward for stubborn persistence…An appealing historical novel that blends gothic and plainly romantic themes."
Kirkus Reviews
"Thompson perfectly captures the Carolina Piedmonts sights, sounds, and flavors and convincingly depicts the turn-of-the-century South-haunted by the Civil War, and embracing old-time religion and new-fangled machinery and ideas. Underlying and uplifting his narrative is Mary Bets vivid point of view: hiding while her grandmother breaks up her grandfathers drunken poker game, helping the sheriff c
Publishers Weekly
"Thompson recreates the years after the Civil War with breathtaking clarity; its a rare joy to sink into a novel and believe in it so completely."
Ann Napolitano, author of A Good Hard Look