![Monday Reads [34]](https://i0.wp.com/www.captivatedreading.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/agraciousplenty.jpeg?resize=313%2C475&ssl=1 "Monday Reads [34]")
A Gracious Plenty Published by Crown by Sheri Reynolds
on September 8, 1997
Genres: Adult, American South, Contemporary, Fantasy, Ghosts, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, Paranormal
Pages: 205
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Find the Author: Website, Goodreads
Also by this author: A Gracious Plenty
Find the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
ISBN: 060960225X
In the lush and isolated cemetery of a small Southern town, Finch Nobles, the narrator of this brilliantly inventive novel, tends to the flowers and shrubs that surround the monuments of people who were not known to her while they lived but who in death have become her lifeline.
Badly burned in a household accident when she was just four, Finch grows into a courageous and feisty loner. She eschews the pity and awkward stares of the people of her hometown and discovers that if she listens closely enough, she can hear the voices of those who have gone before. Finally, when she speaks, they answer back, telling their stories in a remarkable chorus of regrets, explanations, and insights. But the infant Marcus, son of the town's mayor, died before he learned to speak and can only wail away the hours. The roots of his anguish are revealed in a crescendo of lasting resonance that ties together the outcast Finch, her dead friends, and the living community outside the cemetery's gates.
With prose that is spare, yet richly poetic, Sheri Reynolds creates a vision of a world that is at once fantastic and palpably real. She teaches us that neither our capacity to suffer nor our ability to be healed ends with the grave--and that love is all we have. A Gracious Plenty is a reading experience you will not soon forget.
"A triumph of story, voice, and character. The afflicted and unforgettable Finch, whose longings inspire in equal measure love and awe and pity, who seeks to understand the difference between the kind of suffering brought upon us and the kind we bring upon ourselves, defies mortality. Stunning and authentic . . . this is a beautiful book." --Janet Peery, author of The River Beyond the World
Welcome to Monday Reads! Where I just spend a few minutes sharing with you my current read and a snippet or two from my current chapter. Please let me know what you’re reading right now, too!
This is a book club read that my sister-wife, Angela, picked. It’s probably not one I would’ve chosen on my own but, I have to admit–I’m loving it! It’s such an interesting premise–and not at all predictable!
“‘This is all I got,’ I tell William Blott. ‘It’s all I could tote. I hope it helps.’
But he’s not interested in the load I’ve dropped inside his tomb.
‘You want me to arrange it for you?’
Still no answer. And I’m getting fed up with these dead.”
What are you reading, today??
About Sheri Reynolds
Sheri Reynolds is an author of contemporary Southern fiction.
Sheri Reynolds was born and raised in rural South Carolina. She graduated from Conway High School in 1985, Davidson College in 1989, and Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992.
Her published novels include Bitterroot Landing, The Rapture of Canaan (an Oprah book club selection and New York Times bestseller), A Gracious Plenty (98), Firefly Cloak (06), The Sweet In-Between (08), and The Homespun Wisdom of Myrtle T. Cribb (12) and The Tender Grave (21). Her first play, Orabelle's Wheelbarrow, won the Women Playwrights' Initiative playwriting competition for 2005.
Also Professor of English and the Ruth and Perry Morgan Chair of Southern Literature at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, Sheri teaches creative writing and literature classes. She won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council for Higher Education of Virginia in 2003. In 2005, she received a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts in playwriting. She has also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, The College of William and Mary, and Davidson College.
Sheri lives in the town of Cape Charles on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
This book does look and sounds interesting. I love all the different genres that are infused within it!
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