Sadie Blue is seventeen, pregnant and a newlywed of fifteen days bleeding from a head wound on the floor of her trailer thinking she should have never gotten that Roy Tupkin to marry her. She knows if she stays she and her baby are going to die, but she doesn’t know yet what she’s going to do about it.
The book begins with Sadie Blue and ends with her but in the middle are stories told from different residents of Baines Creek, North Carolina all mentioning Sadie in one way or another. We get to know the local preacher, his bitter sister, the new schoolteacher from a fancy private school who feels she finally has found her purpose and the local crone who knows everything about the plants and residents of her corner of the mountains.
In structure the book is reminiscent of Olive Kitteridge but the style is completely different. Fans of spare writing like that of Wiley Cash will enjoy this debut author’s style. It is distinctly southern with the cadence and slang lending to the narrative instead of jarringly detracting from it. A poignant glimpse into Appalachia in the 1970s.
