Hard Times
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In 1930s East Texas, fourteen-year-old Amelia Laxault's father insists she marry Arnold Critchin, a local boy who assaulted her on their first date. When Arnold's alcohol-fueled brutality devastates their family, his ineptitude with crops destroys their farm, and his poorly run moonshine business lands him in prison, Amelia struggles to feed her four children as the Depression worsens and a secret from her past looms large.
Three hundred miles away, Lucious Tremaine tangles with a white police officer. Fleeing to Houston, a second altercation leaves him with a gunshot wound. Desperate and weak, he makes his way into the backwoods.
As Lucious encounters increasing obstacles and Amelia's challenges escalate with Arnold's return from prison-and a visit from her first love, who is now the local sheriff- an explosion looms. Will Lucious make it to Houston? Can Amelia save her children from both starvation and Arnold's increasing, vengeful violence? As the odds stack up and the food runs out, Amelia must summon all her courage, strength, and ingenuity to attempt to save her family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At 14, Amelia Laxault, the kindhearted heroine of this feverish Depression-era crime novel from Edgerton (The Bitch), learns that a girl can expect no mercy in rural East Texas. A brief dalliance with sympathetic outsider Billy Kilber is ended by her father, who's content to see her married to Arnold Critchin, a mean, shiftless neighbor. Despite multiple childbirths during years of mistreatment, Amelia remains faithful to her vows, even when tempted to break them once Billy returns to the area as sheriff. After Arnold's arrest for moonshining, Amelia and the kids are left to starve in their isolated farmhouse. Meanwhile, Lucious Tremaine, who has fled New Orleans after being provoked into shooting two cops, winds up on Amelia's doorstep just as Arnold breaks out of jail and heads home. What happens inside the house is horrendous, but what happens when Arnold drags his oldest daughter into a swamp, with Lucious and Billy in pursuit and a tornado bearing down on them, is way over the top. Edgerton's restrained prose lends some credibility to the melodrama. Those with a taste for Southern gothic will be satisfied.
