By: David Joy
ISBN: 0399574220
Publisher: Putnam
Publication Date: 8/14/2018
Format: Hardcover
My Rating: 4.5 Stars From critically acclaimed author David Joy comes a remarkable novel about the cover-up of an accidental death, and the dark consequences that reverberate through the lives of four people who will never be the same again. When Darl Moody went hunting after a monster buck he’s chased for years, he never expected he’d accidentally shoot a man digging ginseng. Worse yet, he’s killed a Brewer, a family notorious for vengeance and violence. With nowhere to turn, Darl calls on the help of the only man he knows will answer, his best friend, Calvin Hooper. But when Dwayne Brewer comes looking for his missing brother and stumbles onto a blood trail leading straight back to Darl and Calvin, a nightmare of revenge rips apart their world.
The Line That Held Us is a story of friendship and family, a tale balanced between destruction and redemption where the only hope is to hold on tight, clenching to those you love. What will you do for the people who mean the most, and what will you grasp to when all that you have is gone? The only certainty in a place so shredded is that no one will get away unscathed.
Praise
“Exquisitely written, heart-wrenching . . . Joy’s descriptions are lyrical and lingering.”—Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
“David Joy’s novel brought me to my knees. Exquisitely written and heart-wrenching, it reminded me of Faulkner in its dark depiction of family loyalty — that “old fierce pull of blood.” . . . Joy’s descriptions are lyrical and lingering. . . . In the end, the line that holds Joy’s characters may be fraught and frayed, but its pull is fierce.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Joy has proved adept with southern noir in his first two novels, and he nails it again here, in the actions of characters who act as they must, for the sake of family and friendship, given their nature. This is fiction as beautiful and compelling as it is searing.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Joy pulls no punches in this stark and violent examination of sacrifice and suffering. . . . The paranoia that builds alongside Dwayne’s and Calvin’s troubled rumination [culminates] by the end in the powerful possibility of collective redemption. Fans of Frank Bill and Cormac McCarthy will enjoy this gritty thriller.”—Publishers Weekly "Poverty, class, violence, addiction, isolation: No one writes about the issues facing rural America as clearly, as fairly, or as well as David Joy. The Line That Held Us plumbs the depths of friendship and family, uncovering truths that are stamped on the page with blistering realism."—Wiley Cash, author of The Last Ballad
About the Author
David Joy is the author of the Edgar nominated novel Where All Light Tends to Go (Putnam, 2015), as well as the novels The Weight Of This World (Putnam, 2017) and The Line That Held Us (Putnam, TBD). He is also the author of the memoir Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey (Bright Mountain Books, 2011), which was a finalist for the Reed Environmental Writing Award and the Ragan Old North State Award.
Joy is the recipient of an artist fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council. His latest short stories and essays have appeared in Garden & Gun, The Bitter Southerner, and Charlotte Magazine.
Joy lives in Plott Creek, North Carolina. Read More
