A Review: "Godpretty in the Tobacco Field" by Kim Michele Richardson

I'm halfway through Kim Michele Richardson's "GodPretty in the Tobacco Field". I haven't been reading it at a fast pace. It's not a story to shoot through, it's a story to savor and feel and contemplate.

The story takes place in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky in 1969, and the life, there, is not like any I've personally experienced. It’s a hard life and seemingly an unforgiving life.  The author’s writing is fluid; these people of “Nameless” take the reader on a journey, pulling you along through their trials and tribulations, lived both fearlessly and in fear, and  tugging at all those unwanted emotions - eliciting my hate and my anger, which I tried to avoid but couldn't.

Compassion is another emotion, one that draws my heartstrings into a knot and plucks them at will. I wanted to reach out to these people;  I wanted to defend and give back to them what since I could make out of the futility they made of their lives. 

My reading is most always an emotional journey, and not always an easy journey, but one to remember and learn from.  A story is just a story, that is, until a truly gifted writer like Kim takes hold of it and sets it to print.  I’m glad I came upon this novelist.

Once I reached the halfway pages of this story, it was hard to put down...I turned my light out, trying to sleep but couldn't---three times, on went the light, and open went the book. My mind just couldn't let go of these people, and it was then that the truth to the words, "bitter sweet", came alive.

This story speaks to the hardships of rural communities, the hills of Kentucky, the people who carry the grudges and the prejudices, and the hate filled memories throughout their lives...it’s learned and taught, and ingrained in the newborn, and then the hate is passed on with ignorance from one generation to the next.

Although, love is not lost in this story, it’s the mainstay that holds onto hope; like glue, holding these people together. Family. Where would any of us be without hope?  I wanted to fight alongside these people.  I wanted to raise my fist to them, showing their injustice, but realized only new generations, and time and truth, could change the futures of these who are lost in their past.

As I just now finished reading Kim's novel, I remembered this sentence from the first page.. “...there is GodPretty in the child who toils in the tobacco field, her fingers whispering of arthritic days to come.”   An omen, a metaphor of sorts. The lump in my throat settles, and the tears stop threatening, but never forgetting the ever presence of what was then, is still prevalent in our United States today.  But with hope, faith, love and perseverance, only time will tell.