Loved it. I read The Girl Who Stopped Swimming and felt kind of meh about it, but this book won a number of awards, so I decided to give Joshilyn Jackson another try. I'm so glad I did. The characters in this book are so incredibly real, so real that the whole time I was reading the book, I kept imagining the characters as people I know. I couldn't help myself. In one particular instance, it's a bit painful, but more on that later.
Our heroine, Nonny Frett is between things, in about as many ways as you can imagine. She's not quite divorced, but definitely not single. She travels back and forth on a regular basis between where she lives in Athens and Between, where her family lives. She loves Fisher, her great-niece like a mother, but hasn't really stepped up to be like a parent to her. I identified with Nonny so strongly. She's so torn between all these different places and things and parts of herself, ideas about who she could be. All this is brought to a head by the most central division in her life - the fact that she is not a Frett by birth. Well, she is a Frett by birth, but her momma was a Crabtree.
The Fretts and the Crabtrees have a longstanding feud, in which the Fretts have the money and the law on their side, and the Crabtrees have a meanness and a will to survive. Hazel Crabtree, Nonny's mother, shows up one night on Bernese Frett's front door, bursting at the belly. Hazel doesn't want Nonny, but Stacia Frett does and once they see Hazel somewhat safely through childbirth (a handgun is involved), the Frett's decide to steal Nonny. That's how she becomes a Frett, and the Crabtrees, especially Ona Crabtree (Hazel's mother), won't ever forget it.
That's just the beginning of the cast of characters in Between, and each one is so alive that in the novel none of them ever gets lost in the shuffle. They're complicated characters, too. Bernese for example is loyal, stubborn, loving, smart, and fairly treacherous. She is the Frett most in opposition to Ona Crabtree, even though she's not Nonny's mother; Stacia is. Let's just say Bernese reminded me of a family member of mine who shall not be named.
Ona reminded me of my mother. We were poor (are poor), and I'm pretty sure the only reason I didn't have any brothers or cousins in jail was because I didn't have any brothers or boy cousins. The physical description of Ona was like my mother - thin, scrawny even, and Jackson describes her as grasping, clutching. She meant it in a bad way, like it was too much for her, but my mom had this way about her, like she was always holding on a little too tight. I think I'm probably the same way. So for me, there was something inherently lovable about Ona, even before Nonny realizes that. In the same way, when she's still got Bernese bathed in a white light, I already felt like she was too much like some of the people from back home. Too sanctimonious, too proud.
This book that I enjoyed very much counts toward the 100+ Challenge, and the Southern Challenge.
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