Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall
First line: The long howl of a wolf rolls over me like a toothache.
Wall’s debut, originally published by Poison Pen Press, now has a major push behind it with a big publisher, giving the story a well-deserved wider distribution. Wall’s debut novel follows Olivia Harker in what is truly a sweeping, epic adventure of life in segregated Kentucky. The setting is so acutely drawn and the characters so rich, I felt somewhat raggedy and hungry while reading it.
Olivia is raising her grandson at the beginning of the novel and we go backwards to see her journey, from being raised by her kind father and absent mother, who we know early on has mental issues, and Olivia’s tender friendship with the blacks in the community and her fierce protection of the wolves on her land. The beauty of Wall’s story is not just in the writing, which is suberb, but in what it leaves you with when you are through: a deep appreciation for how far we’ve come in America in accepting each other’s differences, an awe of the land we live on and gratitude for those who have shown us love and favor in our own lives.
The book is ripe with big issues – race, class, parenthood, love – and they work together beautifully. I rarely read a book again in the same year, but I’m already marking my calendar for the first snowfall when I can take the book with me into my library and curl up and read it again. But, you, my friend, should read it now. Wall is a master in the making.