In West Mills
-
-
4.2 • 22 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
"A bighearted novel about family, migration, and the unbearable difficulties of love. Here's a cast of characters you won't soon forget." -Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
"Winslow's impressive debut novel introduces readers to both a flawed, fascinating character in fiction and a wonderful new voice in literature." -Real Simple, Best Books of 2019
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Named a Most Anticipated Novel by
TIME MAGAZINE * USA TODAY * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY * NYLON * SOUTHERN LIVING * THE LOS ANGELES TIMES * ESSENCE * THE MILLIONS * REAL SIMPLE* HUFFINGTON POST * BUZZFEED
Let the people of West Mills say what they will about Azalea "Knot" Centre; they won't keep her from what she loves best: cheap moonshine, nineteenth-century literature, and the company of men. And yet, when motherhood looms, Knot begins to learn that her freedom has come at a high price. Low on money, ostracized from her parents and cut off from her hometown, Knot turns to her neighbor, Otis Lee Loving, in search of some semblance of family and home.
Otis Lee is eager to help. A lifelong fixer, Otis Lee is determined to steer his friends and family away from decisions that will cause them heartache and ridicule. After his failed attempt to help his older sister, who lives a precarious life in the North, Otis Lee discovers a possible path to redemption in the chaos Knot brings to his doorstep. But while he's busy trying to fix Knot's life, Otis Lee finds himself powerless to repair the many troubles within his own family, as the long-buried secrets of his troubled past begin to come to light.
Spanning decades in a rural North Carolina town where a canal acts as the color line, In West Mills is a magnificent, big-hearted small-town story about family, friendship, storytelling, and the redemptive power of love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Winslow's stellar debut follows the residents of a black neighborhood in a tiny North Carolina town over the course of several decades, beginning in 1941 and ending in 1987. At the center of the novel is ornery Azalea, nicknamed Knot. Twenty-six when the novel begins, she has moved to West Mills, where she now teaches in the elementary school, to get away from her middle-class family and to keep her drinking problem a secret from them. She never wants for male companionship, but her two closest friends are men with whom she has no romantic interest. Sweet, stable Otis Lee, who lives next door with beloved, mouthy wife Pep, keeps Knot grounded as she tries to choose between motherhood and independence. Gay bartender Valley, who spends years in D.C. and Europe between stretches in West Mills, provides her with a sense of the world outside. Events in that outside world, including WWII and the civil rights movement, touch lightly on the residents of the town, but most of their attention goes to personal relationships and to holding on to secrets that give them leverage over others. Knot is a wonderful character, with a stubborn commitment to her own desires. Winslow has a finely tuned ear for the way the people of this small town talk, and his unpretentiously poetic prose goes down like a cool drink of water on a hot day.
