Description
Fiction. In the drought-ridden mining town of Cuzzert, West Virginia—population 335—the only things that seem to change are the price of cigarettes and the roll call at the prison. Time has dried up like the rain, but two sisters, Aimee and Crystal Lemley, have set out to become prophets at Glorybound Holiness Tabernacle, the basement church where their father Cord Lemley was preacher. For ten years, the sisters have taken care of their mother, Dotte, while holding to vows they took as teenagers after their father skipped town: Crystal has kept silent, and Aimee has kept chaste. When the new teacher from Chicago, Aubrey Falls, attempts to reunite the Lemley family, he looses a flood of memory, misunderstanding, pain and grievance that threatens to swamp them all—unless Aimee and Crystal can see a path to grace.
"GLORYBOUND shines with an interior light so fierce and lovely one cannot be anything but utterly astonished."—Gina Ochsner
"Jessie van Eerden has written the world a masterpiece."—David James Duncan
Author Bio
A West Virginia native, Jessie van Eerden holds a B.A. in English from West Virginia University and an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in The Oxford American, River Teeth, Image, Bellingham Review, Rock & Sling and other publications. Her essays have been selected for inclusion in Red Holler: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature (Sarabande Books, 2012); Dreams and Inward Journeys: A Rhetoric and Reader for Writers, Seventh Edition (Longman, 2010); Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical (Cascade Books of Wipf and Stock, 2009); and Best American Spiritual Writing 2006 (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). She was selected as the 2007-2008 Milton Fellow with Image and Seattle Pacific University for work on GLORYBOUND, which is her first novel. Van Eerden has taught for ten years in college classrooms and in adult literacy programs. She lives in West Virginia where she directs the low-residency M.F.A. writing program of West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Author City: TERRA ALTA, WV USA