Playing with Matches
-
- 39,00 kr
-
- 39,00 kr
Publisher Description
Clea Shine has grown up tough because she had to. Her mother's drinking, her husband's philandering, and the poverty of her youth have hardened her. After one betrayal too many, she packs her kids into the car and drives home - to the clapboard house of the woman who raised her, Jerusha Lovemore. Clea and Jerusha have a bond beyond blood, a respect for the sacrifices they have made for one another, and something as deep and as powerful as love.
Their relationship is tested as Clea delves into her past, searching through the wreckage of a troubled youth for clues as to why her happiness is so elusive. A storm is coming to this Mississippi town, and it will blow the roof from the house, exposing the secrets that have been kept from Clea her entire life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wall's stunning second novel (after Sweeping Up Glass) tells the heart-wrenching tale of Clea Shine, a precocious girl growing up in the shadow of a northern Mississippi prison in the 1980s. Clea, a white girl, has always lived with her black "aunt" Jerusha and Jerusha's sister in False River, a stone's throw from the house where her mother frequently entertains guards from the prison and other local men. Though she loves Auntie, Clea's longing for her mother often sends her across Potato Shed Road, where she sees too much and gets too little from her mother. Meanwhile, Clea consorts with colorful characters including separated conjoined twins born with three arms between them, a boy who lives in a tree, and another boy being held captive under a neighbor's house. Traumatized and heartsick, 12-year-old Clea flees after she sets fire to her mother's house, with disastrous results, and only returns to False River two decades later when a tropical storm destroys her own house and she discovers that her husband is unfaithful. Wall's talent and empathy are evident in this story of learning to forgive.
