Sheri Reynolds
The Sweet In-Between: A Novel by Sheri Reynolds (Shaye Areheart
Books) Kendra, or “Kenny,” has grown up in a family that’s not
really hers. Her momma died of cancer when Kenny was very young, and
“Aunt” Glo is, in fact, her daddy’s girlfriend, who took her in when
her father was sent to jail for drug trafficking.
Nearing
eighteen years old and facing confusion over her sexuality, Kenny
binds her chest with ACE bandages and keeps her hair cropped short
like a boy’s. Her gender ambiguity makes her an outcast at school
and, even at times, at home, where her adopted family isn’t really
sure what to make of her.
When a senseless murder occurs in their run-down coastal town—a
college student mistakenly entering the wrong home is killed—Kenny
becomes obsessed with thoughts of the dead girl and with her own
fears that she will be alone in the world when she turns eighteen.
She makes it her mission to become indispensable to Aunt Glo in the
hopes that she can win the older woman’s love, despite their not
being bound by blood.
A lyrical tale of a family of misfits in a town that’s seen its best
days come and go, The Sweet In-Between is also a poignant story of
an unforgettable character’s coming-of-age.
The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds (Berkley Books)
A
pubescent girl tells of her unwed pregnancy and its aftermath among
the denizens of a small, rural, fundamentalist community lead by her
martinet grandfather. Reynolds's deceptively simple, lyrical prose
convinces you that you are hearing the thoughts of a very bright
girl. Impersonating the narrating character, Hayden is triumphant,
seemingly as genuine and artless as her character. Her personality
wins the listener over immediately; she fully inhabits her role and
keeps you riveted throughout. She and Grammy-winning director
Charles Potter skirt the mawkishness of some passages, unfortunately
also toning down some of the drama and misreading the emotional
subtext of other scenes. But these gaffes are minor. Guitar music (uncredited)
is used sparsely with supreme taste for regional flavor and
emotional thrust.
Firefly Cloak: A Novel by Sheri Reynolds (Three Rivers Press)
When eight-year-old Tessa Lee and her brother, Travis, are abandoned
in a campground by their desperate mother and her boyfriend of the
moment, they are left with only two things: a phone number written
in Magic Marker on Travis’s back and their mother’s favorite
housecoat, which she leaves wrapped around her sleeping children.
This housecoat, painted with tiny fireflies, becomes totemic for
Tessa Lee, providing a connection to her past and to the beautiful
mother she lost.
Seven
years later, when word arrives that her mother has been spotted
working at a tourist trap on a seaside boardwalk not far from where
Tessa Lee lives, she sets off on a dangerous journey to try to
recover what has been taken from her.
Steeped in the rich Southern atmosphere for which Sheri Reynolds has
long been hailed, Firefly Cloak is a vivid coming-of-age novel of
family, loss, and redemption.
A Gracious Plenty: A Novel by Sheri Reynolds (Three Rivers
Press) Badly burned in a household accident when she was a child,
Finch Nobles grows into a courageous and feisty loner who eschews
the pity of her hometown and discovers that she can hear the voices
of the people buried in her father's cemetery.
Finally,
when she speaks to them, they answer, telling their stories in a
remarkable chorus of regrets, explanations, and insights. A Gracious
Plenty is like an extraordinary amalgam of Steinbeck and Faulkner,
Spoon River Anthology and Our Town. It is a reading experience that
you will not soon forget.
"Don't
take no more than you pay for.'' Jael eventually knocks Mammie over
the head with a mallet, and the murder is blamed on a disgruntled
customer. She is adopted by the deacon, River Bill, and lives
contentedly in his house in the middle of the river until the day
she predictably becomes ``his wife instead of his daughter...it
confused me like nothing before.'' She takes off with a handsome
young man who stops at their shop while River Bill isn't around,
only to find when she awakens that he's disappeared with all her
belongings--a development that surprises her far more than it will
the reader. Jael spears frogs for dinner, makes a home under a giant
oak, and begins a strange ritual: cutting herself on the stomach,
hips, and insides of her thighs. The tone here is so matter-of-fact,
and Jael's voice is so colorless, that even this extreme experience
seems dull, lifeless, and predictable. After her rescue, Jael fakes
amnesia so she won't have to go back to her former life and begin
the difficult process of resocializing; instead, she finds support
and strength in imaginary companions like the woman she models out
of wax and the Virgin Mary. Reynolds's lackluster prose never leaves
any doubt that Jael will overcome this passing madness, leaving
little reason to watch her working as a janitor in a church, falling
in love with a young artist, and joining a sexual- abuse survivors'
group. The subject of abuse and recovery deserves more skilled
treatment than it gets here. (Literary Guild alternate selection) --
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