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By Leigh Newman
5 of 7
Out of Peel Tree
By Laura Long
140 pages;
Vandalia Press
The
people in Laura Long’s first novel move in and out of Peel Tree, a small town
in Appalachia struggling with family secrets, barely-held-together marriages
and regrettable mistakes like, say, having an affair with the manager of the Dairy
Queen. And yet, moment after moment in this slim, tender book explores those shimmers
of happiness that define our lives, regardless of our circumstances. For the
first time ever, 60-year-old Essie crosses the West Virginia state line to go
on vacation in Florida, where the sun on her face makes her feel as if she’s
put on “a brand new dress as bright as daffodils.” In a later chapter, young
Corina swings on the porch examining “two yellow butterflies flitted around
each other, whimsical doodles in the air,” instead of her alcoholic mother.
This is prose as joyful and complex as the joy it describes. Expect to levitate
along with the characters.
— Leigh Newman
Published 05/02/2014