| Title | : | The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1496753127 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781496753120 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 |
| Publication | : | Expected publication March 25, 2025 |
Genevieve Charbonneau talks to ghosts and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she’s wandered throughout the South, working in a Louisiana circus and as a hootchy kootch dancer in Texas. Now for the first time in a decade, she’s allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother’s Arkansas farmhouse, a place hallowed in her memory.
Disguised by years in exile and a name she found on a gravestone, Genevieve intends only to visit briefly and leave. But a chance meeting with a guilt-ridden young Vietnam veteran draws her into more unexpected connections. Her hard-won independence inspires an abused woman and her daughters to find their own path to empowerment, and a hypocritical preacher is brought to a long-deserved reckoning.
With undertones of magical realism and dark humor, here is a powerful story of discovering—and sometimes rediscovering—one’s place in the world, and the unexpected challenges and gifts that present themselves along the way.
The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree Reviews
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A dark tale set in Arkansas in 1967 of abuse in the guise of love, sin in the guise of salvation and revenge in the guise of rattlesnakes and tough women. Genevieve runs from one bad situation to another after she loses her grandmother. She takes on an assumed name and becomes a dancer, snake handler in a tent church and circus until finally coming home. What she finds are broken people like the ones she knows all too well - a woman suffering from years of abuse by her husband now worries for her daughters, a young man who returned home damaged by the Vietnam war and others who are powerless against domineering men led by a violent self proclaimed reverend. Genevieve is dealing with her own ghosts but helps give the reverend a taste of his own religion. A powerful story of love and redemption where strong women try to break the chain of abuse by rising up and dispensing their own justice. Fans of Chris Whittaker and books like WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING will find much here to love. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.