Betty
The International Bestseller
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
'So engrossing! Betty is a page-turning Appalachian coming-of-age story steeped in Cherokee history, told in undulating prose that settles right into you' Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times
'Beautiful and devastating' Observer, Books of the Year
'Breathtaking' Vogue
'A girl comes of age against the knife.'
Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty Carpenter is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and loss, of lush landscapes and blazing stars. Despite the hardships she encounters, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness - the horrors of her family's past and present - Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.
A heartbreaking yet magical story, Betty is a punch-in-the-gut of a novel - full of the crushing cruelty of human nature and the redemptive power of words.
'I felt consumed by this book. I loved it, you will love it' Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters
'Vivid and lucid, Betty has stayed with me' Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
'I loved Betty' Fiona Mozley, author of Hot Stew
'Tiffany McDaniel follows in the tradition of The Color Purple with her unflinching portrayal of the generational ripples of racism, poverty, and abuse' Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child
See what readers are saying:
'I was fully immersed in this from start to finish' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Utterly beautiful and completely devastating' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'This book is a beautiful, beautiful thing. It finds hope in such painful places' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'I adored this book. I found it really moving ... It's a tear-jerker' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'This story will stay with me for a long time' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'An all-time favourite ... Certain to become a classic' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McDaniel bases her raw if overwrought bildungsroman (after The Summer That Melted Everything) on the life of her mother. Born in 1954, narrator Betty is one of eight siblings whose cherished father, Landon Carpenter, a Cherokee, tells wondrous tales, and whose mother, Alka Lark, shares cruel truths ("God hates us," she says, referring to women). Betty recounts poverty, puberty, and the tragic loss of one sibling after the other. Betty looks like Landon and is abused at school by the prejudiced children and teachers of Breathed, Ohio. The episodic narrative revolves around Betty's struggles over whether to divulge a family secret involving incest and rape at the story's rotten core. Along the way, Landon, a finely rendered character, dispenses most of the wisdom ("Some people are as beautiful and soft as peonies, others as hard as a mountain"), but McDaniel gives Betty exceedingly precocious insights (at nine: "William Shakespeare wrote my father a Romeo heart and a Hamlet mind at the same time Henry David Thoreau composed him to have sympathy toward nature and a longing for paradise to be regained"). Still, she brilliantly describes Betty's self-image based on her father's stories of their ancestors. McDaniel is an ambitious and sincere writer, and occasionally her work transcends.
