Bloodroot
Amy Greene
January 2010
304 pages

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FTC: At the risk of repeating myself, I bought it.

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Bloodroot is another story of madness. Although totally different from Waiting for Columbus and The Unnamed, it still deals with mental illness and what can drive a person to insanity.

While Columbus and The Unnamed are set much more within someone’s madness (if that makes any sense), Bloodroot is more encompassing. It is both the story of a family, and how people can drive each other to madness.

Bloodroot consists of three sections, all with different narrators who together tell the story of Myra Lamb. In the first section, Myra’s granny, Byrdie, begins the tale. She reminisces about her own childhood, as well as the life she made with her husband on Bloodroot Mountain. She tells of how she came to care for Myra, and how Myra fell in love with bad-boy John Odom. Alternating chapters with Byrdie is their young neighbor, Doug Cotter, who is hopelessly in love with Myra.

In the next section we hear from Myra’s children, Laura and Johnny, who also alternate chapters. They recount their childhood with a wild mother who is sinking deeper and deeper into silence and her own world. Despite being left to fend for themselves, the children are happy on Bloodroot Mountain until disaster strikes. After a pivotal event in the story, the focus shifts away from Myra for awhile and Laura and Johnny focus on their own lives.

Finally, we hear from Myra herself, and learn just why she ends up the way she does.

Despite a few “you gotta be kidding me” coincidences that pop up, this is a great tale of family and madness. It is very evocative of life in Appalachia (not that I’ve ever lived there, but I have my own granny who grew up dirt poor and miserable in Mississippi and at times it was like listening to her speak).

The Publishers Weekly review of this book is actually pretty harsh, as it takes the author to task for failing to deliver on the mystical powers of Byrdie. I disagree, as I don’t think that mention of these powers in the beginning meant that the author then had to let that be the focus of the book. If you relax and just let the novel unfold, rather than read things into it, it’ll reward you in the end.

And now, don’t read anymore if you’re going to read this book, or Waiting for Columbus, or even The Unnamed, because I’m going to discuss endings and conclusions. You’ve been warned!

Despite the tidy wrap-up at the end, I actually liked the epilogue, and John’s point that two people can be bad for each other. He feels remorse for his actions, and realizes that he drove Myra into madness. I think this book is an interesting contrast to Waiting for Columbus, in which grief drove the main character mad, and The Unnamed, which seems to hint at an organic cause for Tim’s illness.