The Accidentals Page 32
—Elizabeth Spencer, author of The Light in the Piazza
“Gwin’s prose is profound and Faulkner-ian in tone. Those who enjoy Southern fiction that explores both sides of the color line will want to give Gwin’s latest a gander, and the novel’s especially timely focus on what happens to communities in the aftermath of a natural disaster will draw many readers. [Promise] will inspire further exploration of an underexamined American tragedy.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A gripping tale of racism, power, and the bonds that make a family, Promise explores how one can rebuild after tragedy strikes.”
—Booklist
“Black and white characters are equally well drawn in this atmospheric whirlwind of a book, set over the brief period from the moment the unannounced late-evening storm strikes to its horrific aftermath. Memorable, dreamlike, [a] narrative that vividly conveys what it was like to survive the fourth most deadly tornado in U.S. history, it also brings to light the vast disparity in the care and treatment of white vs. black residents.”
—Library Journal
“[An] impressive novel. Promise takes on the page-turning pacing of a mystery while remaining solidly literary. Gwin’s writing is as precise as it is entertaining, and she creates unique rhythms for Dovey and Jo, giving each a distinct pulse. Their memories, supported by a great cast of nurses, neighbors and relatives, bring great richness to the story.”
—BookPage
“Promise is innately worth reading because it involves a gripping true story that emphasizes a terribly dark time in America’s history, but the inspired, thoughtful and beautiful writing takes it to another level.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“[Gwin] writes of this storm with authority—she has clearly done her research—and couples her knowledge with a fine imagination to give us the devastation wrought by the tornado. . . . Unless we ourselves have lived through a disaster like this one, we forget that the survivors must often struggle to find food, water, shelter, medical care, and safety. Gwin’s accounts of the hunger and privation in this tornado’s aftermath vividly bring home these realities. Highly recommended.”
—Smoky Mountain News
“A gripping novel, suspenseful novel, full of humanity at its worst and its best.”
—News & Record (Greensboro, North Carolina)
Praise for The Queen of Palmyra
The Queen of Palymra, Minrose Gwin’s first novel, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award, and was included on an Indie Next List. The Women’s National Book Association selected it as one of thirteen Great Group Reads for 2010.
“Here it is, the most powerful and also the most lyrical novel about race, racism, and denial in the American South since To Kill a Mockingbird. Writing from deep within the belly of the beast, Minrose Gwin tells the story through the voice of Florence Irene Forrest, a girl growing up in a segregated Mississippi community where her father is a secret Klan leader while her main support comes from an African American family. A story about knowing and not knowing, The Queen of Palmyra is finally a testament to the ultimate power of truth and knowledge, language and love.”
—Lee Smith, author of On Agate Hill
“Minrose Gwin is an extremely gifted writer and The Queen of Palmyra is a brilliant and compelling novel. Set in Mississippi in the volatile civil rights era and then in New Orleans with the impending devastation of Hurricane Katrina, this novel powerfully reveals the effects of both human and natural destruction. The beauty of the prose, the strength of voice and the sheer force of circumstance will hold the reader spellbound from beginning to end.”
—Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life
“The Queen of Palmyra is an exquisitely beautiful novel. Through the eyes of a young girl, Minrose Gwin confronts the tragic face of racism and shows how it twists and destroys lives in a small southern town. Written with unflinching honesty, the novel grips the reader from its first page and relentlessly drives us to its conclusion.”
—William Ferris, author of Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues
“Divert your reader and then ‘clobber’ them, advised Flannery O’Connor. In this bold and brilliant book, Minrose Gwin diverts us with the affecting voice of a child and then clobbers us with the ugly truths of our collective past. I can almost hear O’Connor cheering.”
—Sharon Oard Warner, author of Sophie’s House of Cards
“With spot-on dialogue, imagery that winds and engulfs the reader and honesty that cuts to the core, The Queen of Palmyra is one novel that everyone above, below, to the left, and to the right of the Mason-Dixon Line must read.”
—Examiner Book of the Week
“The protagonist of this affecting and disturbing bildungsroman, Florence Forrest, lives in Millwood, Miss., the small segregated town where her father, Win, a burial insurance salesman, is the proud leader of the local Klansmen. . . . This thought-provoking novel shows the terror and tragedy in one divided Southern community whose residents have no interest in reconciling.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A nuanced, gripping story of race and identity.”
—Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
“The story of the civil rights movement has been written large in literature and painted across movie screens, but in this at times poetical, always exquisitely written novel, the story becomes that of a million small injuries that make up the story of hatred and prejudice. In Gwin’s hands life springs from the pages, the 1960s come to life. I cannot remember when last I was as mesmerized by a book, or as moved by its message.”
—Cape Times (South Africa)
“Free of racial clichés and filled with an extraordinary understanding of the lives of blacks and whites as the South was changing, The Queen of Palmyra is an astonishing and moving novel. Each of her characters becomes a flesh-and-blood person. Mississippians know these people, have seen their brutality, their compassion, their struggles. In many respects, then, The Queen of Palmyra is our story, regardless of our color. But because of its emotional power the novel may find itself in the rarefied ranks of classics like To Kill a Mockingbird. And thus become a book that belongs to all Americans.”
—Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi)
“There’s a new book on my shelf, placed with care beside To Kill a Mockingbird, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Help. This quartet has given me an indelible sense of time and place for the turbulent 1960s in the South.”
—Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia)
“A triumph of narrative skill. Part of the genius of this work is that it encourages the reader to love words in a new way.”
—Observer (Charles Town, West Virginia)
“The order, specificity, and elegance of language color Gwin’s writing and speech. The imagery of The Queen of Palmyra is replete with rich and unexpected detail.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“If you read only one book this year, this should be it. Not since To Kill a Mockingbird has there been a novel that so deeply combines the racial tension of the Deep South with everyday moments of joy, humor and pain as seen through the eyes of a young narrator struggling to process traumatic events she sees but doesn’t understand.”
—Roanoke Times
“Through the eyes of 11-year-old Florence Forrest, Gwin tells a layered story that is as unsettling as it is satisfying.”
—Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee)
“The Queen of Palmyra, the fine debut novel by Minrose Gwin, seems destined to attract comparisons. It may remind readers of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. It’ll also stir memories of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. But The Queen of Palmyra is definitely an original. It’s darker than the other books, with a portrait of Southern race relations that’s more complex and more accurate than many fictional depictions. As the novel speeds to its tragic end, I couldn’t put it down.”
—News &
Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) and Charlotte Observer
“What if Scout had been the daughter of a leader of the Klan instead of the child of a beloved, fair-minded lawyer? The small-town South of the middle of the last century seen through the eyes of a Klansman’s daughter might force us to take a larger step forward in confronting the real brutality of our former ways. . . . But Minrose Gwin does not preach. She is a gifted storyteller, careful wordsmith and sensitive observer of personal interactions. Her book would be compelling reading, even if it had no important underlying message.”
—News & Record (Greensboro, North Carolina)
“[Reading The Queen of Palmyra] we can be the eyewitnesses who, by refusing to look away, become part of the true story.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Praise for Wishing for Snow: A Memoir
“Wishing for Snow sits on the short shelf of books that I will never part with. Minrose Gwin writes with a poet’s lyricism, a historian’s scrupulousness, a maverick’s ingenuity, and a daughter’s immense love. A wholly original and transcendent memoir.”
—Sandra Scofield, author of Occasions of Sin: A Memoir
“Astonishingly honest, tender, and brave, Minrose Gwin’s luminous memoir of her mother’s troubled life should be required reading for anyone struggling to forgive a difficult parent. Wishing for Snow is a marvel of empathy and insight. With lyrical intelligence and clarity, Gwin distinguishes her mother as a vulnerable, sensitive, and gifted human being apart from a daughter’s crushed expectations.”
—Marianne Gingher, author of Adventures in Pen Land: One Writer’s Journey from Inklings to Ink
“The mother-daughter tie is perhaps the most intimate any of us will ever experience. Stories of rage and laughter, the songs of survival and destruction are passed through the birth cord and from the mother’s milk. Wishing for Snow is a testament to a difficult and disturbing relationship between a mother and daughter, both poets attempting to sing in a difficult age. This gift of a book made me question: how do any of us become poets? Here is one very particular and moving answer.”
—Joy Harjo, author of How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975–2001
“An eloquent memoir of a daughter seeking a clear view of her complicated, crazy mother. . . . Gwin’s mother is very much alive in this lyrical book. She haunts the pages with her own words, shakes webs from Gwin’s closeted memory, and stirs up the dust of a life lived intensely, madly, and often painfully. . . . This is definitely a real-life story we all need to hear.”
—Booklist
“Wishing for Snow addresses the complicated nuances of love without ever descending to sugarcoated sentimentalism—and without allowing anyone (herself included) to be free from guilt, implication, or accountability. Gwin’s memoir brings her . . . into conversation with authors from Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor to Doris Betts, Gail Godwin, Janisse Ray, and Dorothy Allison. Her book is one that demands to be read.”
—Southern Scribe
“Gwin’s effort to reconcile her own identity with her mother’s life and death is tender and haunting—a compelling and satisfying read.”
—Gulf Coast
“At turns, Gwin’s memoir is sad, hilarious, frightening, rambling, and positively operatic . . . suffused with both Gwin’s wish to understand her mother and the knowledge that fulfilling such a wish is likely as impossible as snow that sticks in Mississippi at Christmas.”
—Mississippi Magazine
“Gwin describes [anger] with honesty, conveying the complexity of simultaneously loving and being furious at the mother whose mental illness presented her with so many seemingly insoluble dilemmas. . . . The mother is marvelously present throughout the book.”
—Women’s Review of Books
Also by Minrose Gwin
Promise
The Queen of Palmyra
Wishing for Snow
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE ACCIDENTALS. Copyright © 2019 by Minrose Gwin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Cover design by Elsie Lyons
Cover images © Vivienne Mok / Trevillion Images (women); © mamita / Paladin12 / marchello74 / Shutterstock (3 images)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gwin, Minrose, author.
Title: The accidentals : a novel / Minrose Gwin.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : William Morrow Paperbacks, [2019]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018058809| ISBN 9780062471758 (trade paperback) | ISBN 0062471759 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780062912350 (large print) | ISBN 0062912356 (large print) | ISBN 9780062471772 (ebook) | ISBN 0062471775 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Domestic fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Contemporary Women.
Classification: LCC PS3607.W56 A65 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058809
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Digital Edition AUGUST 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-247177-2
Version 06132019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-247175-8
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