By James Scott
Set in rural big apple kingdom on the flip of the 20th century, really good new expertise James Scott makes his literary debut with The Kept—a propulsive novel similar to the works of Michael Ondaatje, Cormac McCarthy, and Bonnie Jo Campbell, during which a mom and her younger son embark on a quest to avenge a negative and violent tragedy that has shattered their secluded family.
In the wintry weather of 1897, a trio of killers descends upon an remoted farm in upstate long island. Midwife Elspeth Howell returns domestic to the carnage: her husband, and 4 of her teenagers, murdered. prior to she will become aware of her final son Caleb, alive and hiding within the kitchen pantry, one other shot earrings out over the snow-covered valley. Twelve-year-old Caleb needs to are likely to his mom till she recovers adequate for them to take to the frozen wasteland looking for the lads responsible.
A hot portrait of a cruel world—of guilt and misplaced innocence, atonement and retribution, resilience and sacrifice, pregnant obsession and primal adolescence—The Kept introduces an old-beyond-his-years protagonist as indelible and heartbreaking as Mattie Ross of True Grit or Jimmy Blevins of All the gorgeous Horses, in addition to a shape-shifting mom as enigmatic and mysterious as a personality drawn via Russell Banks or Marilynne Robinson.
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Example text
Bonny halted in front of his wife with his boots just short of the water, and for a moment he seemed about to hit her. Then he hesitated, and his gaze fell away from hers, and he scowled across at Shandy. He fumbled a clasp knife out of his pocket—Shandy stepped back, snatching at his own—but when Bonny had unfolded his blade he pressed the point into the tip of his own left forefinger and flicked the blade outward, throwing a couple of drops of blood toward Shandy, and at the same time he began chanting a nonsensical multi-language rhyme.
Beth and I will be jumping ship at the first opportunity. htm (41 of 185) [2/14/2004 1:05:00 AM] ON STRANGER TIDES - Tim Powers would slip—that's soaked into her wood. I've got an uncle who needs hanging. He turned back toward the fires and started walking again, and it occurred to him that he wasn't far from the spot where he'd seen the man with the torn pockets and the bound-up jaw; and the memory of it made him walk a little faster, not because the man had looked threatening, but because of what Davies had said when Shandy told him about it.
Someone was yelling. "Cap'n Davies! " Davies dropped his bottle into the sand. "That's Venner," he said thoughtfully. "How did that move go? " Shandy shut his eyes and pictured it. "Right. " As the two men trudged back toward the fires, Davies pulled a pistol out of his belt. "If Venner plays me square I can handle him," he said quietly. "But if he doesn't, I want you to hang back with this and make sure no—" He stopped talking suddenly and gave a weary laugh. "Never mind. " He put the pistol away and lengthened his stride.