Stony Kill
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
After the sudden death of her mother, Joss Ryckman finds herself running away from everything—the life she did not choose of managing the family bakery in Brooklyn, the troubled relationship with her sometimes violent father, and her conflicts with Wyatt, a lover who always wants more. But when she flees to the country farm of her childhood in upstate New York, will she finally find the truth of dark events in her family’s past? Or will all that she has held at bay for twenty years come crashing down? As Joss comes to terms with her loss, she is forced to confront memories of a childhood steeped in both joy and sorrow. As the past seeps in through the rich farmland and the landscape of the treacherous, churning Stony Kill, Piecing together the broken past and her family’s dysfunction, the dark secrets of a family submerged in a history of violence and regret begin to take shape, and the reality of two brutal killings can no longer be denied. Joss must make her own choices and, ultimately, let go.Rich with beautiful language and immersed in powerful descriptions of Joss’s feelings, Stony Kill tells a powerful story of the heartbreak and suffering from violent acts of a dysfunctional family, and ultimately her hope and choice of a better life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Small's sprawling, evocative debut, Joss Ellen Ryckman stops running from her past and, after the death of her mother, returns to her childhood farm in upstate New York. The book follows Joss as she navigates owning the Brooklyn bakery her mother started which she's been managing since she was 20 and then moving into the farmhouse. Small's expansive prose spares no expense on powerful and descriptive details. Much of the book is spent in reminiscence as Joss spins endlessly in the revolving door of memory, comparing her life now with her childhood on the farm. Her memories circle mainly around her father, Big Paul, who called her "Paulie-girl" or "Boy-o" and had a set of expectations Joss is only now realizing she could never live up to. Among a larger cast of characters, past and present, the winding narrative follows Joss coming to terms with her own agency and realizing that the past doesn't necessarily determine the future. Joss also decides to stop hiding from two family tragedies: one of her mother's and one of her own. These haunting moments bookend the narrative and illuminate the raw edges of Joss' experience. This deeply expressive book is a fine exploration of personal history and the significance of place as a means of finding oneself.
