Jewelweed: A NovelFrom the acclaimed author of Driftless, “a novel of forgiveness, a generous ode to the spirit’s indefatigable longing for love” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). When David Rhodes burst onto the American literary scene in the 1970s, he was hailed as “a brilliant visionary” (John Gardner) and compared to Sherwood Anderson and Marilynne Robinson. In Driftless, his “most accomplished work yet” (Joseph Kanon), Rhodes brought Words, WI, to life in a way that resonated with readers across the country. Now with Jewelweed, this beloved author returns to the same out-of-the-way hamlet and introduces a cast of characters who all find themselves charged with overcoming the burdens left by the past, sometimes with the help of peach preserves or pie. After serving time for a dubious conviction, Blake Bookchester is paroled and returns home. The story of Blake’s hometown is one of challenge, change, and redemption, of outsiders and of limitations, and simultaneously one of supernatural happenings and of great love. Each of Rhodes’s characters—flawed, deeply human, and ultimately universal—approach the future with a combination of hope and trepidation, increasingly mindful of the importance of community to their individual lives. Rich with a sense of empathy and wonder, Jewelweed offers a vision in which the ordinary becomes mythical. “I liked Driftless, but his emotionally rich new novel, Jewelweed, a sequel of sorts, is even better. The novel emits frequent solar flares of surprise and wonder.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer “[A] rhapsodic, many-faceted novel of profound dilemmas, survival, and gratitude . . . [a] refulgent hymn to the earth, ‘psychic strength,’ hard work, integrity, and love.”—Booklist (starred review) |
Contents
3 | |
12 | |
21 | |
33 | |
47 | |
Serving Time | 60 |
Standing in the Middle | 73 |
The Interview | 85 |
A Long Lament | 254 |
Fortunes Never Spent | 265 |
Weed War | 273 |
Heresy | 280 |
Coming Alive | 288 |
Hunting the Devil | 298 |
Undoing Destiny | 310 |
Stepping Out of the River of Time | 323 |
Intimate Imperatives | 99 |
Jewelweed | 107 |
Finding Bee | 114 |
Moving Out Moving In Moving On | 126 |
Settling In | 141 |
August | 153 |
Searching for the Wild Boy | 159 |
Inching Into the Present | 169 |
Expectancies | 179 |
Lucky | 185 |
When Time Slows Down | 194 |
July Montgomerys House | 201 |
Making Ready | 209 |
Burning the Past | 216 |
The New Dress | 226 |
Dawn | 232 |
The Party | 243 |
Catching Up | 338 |
Two Lives Collide | 343 |
Slippery Slopes | 346 |
The Trial | 355 |
Boys Nature | 369 |
Night Ride | 380 |
Dart Ventures Out | 389 |
Driving a Picture from the Pastinto the Future | 394 |
Kevin and Wally | 404 |
Grass Fire | 416 |
Rooting Trees | 421 |
The Bargain | 427 |
Winnie in Her Garden | 432 |
Strawberry Wine | 441 |
Acknowledgments | 449 |
About the Author | 451 |
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Common terms and phrases
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