The Marrowbone Marble Company

Starred review from February 15, 2010
Taylor returns to the West Virginia backdrop of his NBCC-award finalist The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart
with a novel that spans almost three decades in the life of an orphan. Between attending college classes and working as a factory furnace tender at Mann Glass Company, 18-year-old Loyal Ledford keeps himself busy. But when WWII begins, he dutifully enlists in the Marine Corps, abandons his girlfriend (and boss's daughter), Rachel, and heads off to war, where he quells the trauma with whiskey. Ledford's homecoming is celebrated with a marriage to Rachel, a return to school and the glass factory, and the birth of two children. The ghosts of his wartime stint plague his psyche, but after meeting his part-Indian cousins, the Bonecutter brothers, and becoming enchanted with the family land where they live, Loyal and his cousins begin a marble manufacturing company. Soon, civil rights strife rips through the region, threatening the survival of Loyal's company and the future of his family. Taylor's socially astute and fast-moving sophomore novel is earthy, authentic, and a testament to his literary talent.