Love and Lament

May 6, 2013
Born in 1887, the year the railroad comes to fictional Haw County, N.C., Mary Bet Hartsoe is tough, humble, independent, and enduring—a true North Carolina heroine. Thompson’s second novel (after The Reservoir) follows Mary Bet as she grows from a curious six-year-old who mistakes a circuit-riding preacher for the Devil to a survivor of war, disease, love, and progress. By 15, Mary Bet has seen her mother and her eight older siblings die, including beloved deaf brother Siler, who perishes in a puzzling accident. She is left alone to care for her father, Cicero, a Civil War veteran and storeowner now suffering physical and mental deterioration. Eventually she takes a job as a courthouse clerk and sometime deputy working for her cousin; after he leaves to fight in World War I, Mary Bet becomes North Carolina’s first female sheriff. Thompson perfectly captures the Carolina Piedmont’s sights, sounds, and flavors and convincingly depicts the turn-of-the-century South—haunted by the Civil War, and embracing old-time religion and new-fangled machinery and ideas. Underlying and uplifting his narrative is Mary Bet’s vivid point of view: hiding while her grandmother breaks up her grandfather’s drunken poker game, helping the sheriff chase down moonshiners, watching Cicero and Able, the son of slaves, try to grow bananas in North Carolina’s climate. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group.

April 15, 2013
A North Carolina girl is the unlikely survivor of a host of tribulations between the Civil War and World War I. Mary Bet, the no-nonsense hero of the second historical novel by Thompson (The Reservoir, 2011), is the youngest of nine children raised by a rural store owner and his wife. If that seems like a lot of characters for a novelist to juggle, Thompson dispatches them with chilling efficiency: pneumonia, accidents and other misfortunes kill off the clan one by one, until by the turn of the century, the only Hartsoes remaining are Mary Bet and her father, R.C., who soon lands in an asylum. So this is Mary Bet's story alone, but she's stalked by a lifelong feeling she's been cursed, from her fear of the devil as a girl to the boy who got away as an adolescent to her adult sense that she wasn't told everything about the death of her favorite brother. The early chapters of this book are somewhat plodding, as Thompson introduces family members only to eradicate most of them, with digressions into moonshining, religion and quixotic research into perpetual motion. But once the story is firmly Mary Bet's, it picks up speed, grace and a touch of dark humor. When the town sheriff enlists during WWI, she's quickly promoted to the county's first female sheriff (albeit a temporary one), and it's clear that the ghosts of all those family members have toughened her up enough to face bootleggers and thieves. The changing South looms over the narrative, as the economy shifts from agrarian to industrial and racism warps the civic character. But Thompson has taken pains not to let history intrude too much: This is a more intimate narrative, a study of one woman's reward for stubborn persistence. Though slow to start, an appealing historical novel that blends gothic and plainly romantic themes.

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September 1, 2013

In a family beset by extraordinary hardships and misfortunes, Mary Bet Hartsoe, the youngest and rapidly becoming the last living of nine children, comes of age in rural North Carolina during the late 1880s through World War I. Although industrialization and war bring about many changes--progress, in the form of railroads, electricity, telephones, and indoor plumbing--the old value systems continue their hold. Women cannot vote, non-Christians cannot hold public office, and African Americans are treated as inferior. As a woman, Mary Bet is drawn toward the future, attracted by what she sees as the dance of life between women and men, yet the past maintains its fierce grip on her as she battles to rectify the balance of her days against the weight of what she has lived already. VERDICT Beginning with the book's apt title, Thompson (The Reservoir) has written an engaging and intriguing portrayal of America's Reconstruction and industrialization period to draw readers into an engrossing story, told with strong characterization and meticulous attention to detail.--Joyce Townsend, Pittsburg, CA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
Two years after the release of his first novel, The Reservoir, Thompson returns to its southern gothic setting. In 1893, five-year-old Mary Bet Hartsoe watchesfrom the side of a rural North Carolina road, a doll clutched in her armsas the Devil approaches her on horseback. Although this turns out to be a case of mistaken identity, Mary Bet marks this moment as the first she believes that her family is cursed. The novel spans the years that follow through WWI, and for Mary Bet, these tumultuous years of southern reformation are punctuated by the death of her mother and her eight siblings, as well as her father's mental decline. At times, Thompson's narrative staggers under the weight of his attempt to relay great passages of time. However, the voice of the narrator feels authentic to the era, and Mary Bet springs off the page as a character. She is confident but conflicted, and her realistic journey will keep readers engaged.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)