Work Like Any Other - by Virginia Reeves (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"A starkly beautiful, morally complicated and astonishingly accomplished debut set in 1920s rural Alabama following Roscoe T. Martin, a prideful electrician sent to prison after his illegal siphoning of electrical state power for his wife's family's farm leads to an innocent man's death"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE</b> <p/> <b>In this "inventive, beautiful, and deceptively morally complex novel" (<i>The Miami Herald</i>), a prideful electrician in 1920s rural Alabama struggles to overcome past sins, find peace, and rescue his marriage after being sent to prison for manslaughter.</b> <p/>Roscoe T Martin set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the twentieth century: electricity. It became his training, his life's work. But when his wife, Marie, inherits her father's failing farm, Roscoe has to give up his livelihood, with great cost to his sense of self, his marriage, and his family. Realizing he might lose them all if he doesn't do something, he begins to siphon energy from the state, ushering in a period of bounty and happiness. Even the love of Marie and their child seem back within Roscoe's grasp. <p/>Then a young man working for the state power company stumbles on Roscoe's illegal lines and is electrocuted, and everything changes: Roscoe is arrested; the farm once more starts to deteriorate; and Marie abandons her husband, leaving him to face his twenty-year sentence alone. As an unmoored Roscoe carves out a place at Kilby Prison, he is forced to ask himself once more if his work is just that, or if the price of his crimes--for him and his family--is greater than he ever let himself believe. <p/><i>Work Like Any Other</i> is "a consummately well-written, deeply affecting, thought-provoking American historical novel of hard labor, broken dreams, moral dilemmas, violence, racism, and the intricacies of marriage, parenthood, and friendship. Hope is found in reading, compassion, forgiveness, and good, honest work, whatever form it takes. Virginia Reeves's gripping, dynamically plotted, and profound novel will resonate on different frequencies for men and women and spark soul-searching and heated discussion" (<i>Booklist</i>, starred review).<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><i>Work Like Any Other</i> is an exceptional novel told in clear, direct, and starkly beautiful language. Virginia Reeves has a gift for bringing to life all the tensions that emerge wherever people, place, and progress collide. I absolutely loved it.--Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds<br><br>"[An] engrossing debut novel . . . . A vivid, suspenseful tale of guilt and redemption."-- "Providence Journal"<br><br>"[An] inventive, beautiful and deceptively morally complex novel."-- "Nick Mancusi, The Miami Herald"<br><br>"Author Virginia Reeves has delivered a commanding, dramatic novel of life in 1920s Alabama, inside a family torn apart my anger, resentment, shame, guilt, and desire. This is a deeply gripping portrayal of Americana in the Deep South, replete with racism, violence, and heartbreak. Astonishingly well-written."-- "New York Journal of Books"<br><br>"Eloquent and acutely self-aware... Prose so lovely that it strains credulity... Elegant."-- "Kirkus"<br><br>"The novel's great strength is that in showing so much in terms of race, our prison system, forgiveness and labor, it never is heavy-handed. . . . Reeves' nuance for these people and this story is, indeed, quite powerful."-- "Hans Weyandt, Minneapolis Star-Tribune"<br><br>"This is a consummately well-written, deeply affecting, thought-provoking American historical novel of hard labor, broken dreams, moral dilemmas, violence, racism, and the intricacies of marriage, parenthood, and friendship. Hope is found in reading, compassion, forgiveness, and good, honest work, whatever form it takes. Reeves' gripping, dynamically plotted, and profound novel will resonate on different frequencies for men and women and spark soul-searching and heated discussion."-- "Booklist, Starred Review"<br><br>"Work Like Any Other" is addictive when it focuses on Roscoe's life behind bars, and the perils he suffers, a good man you can't help but have sympathy for, but one earmarked for suffering. . . . A book worth reading."-- "The Missourian"<br><br>A morally complicated ode to Alabama.-- "Jackson Free Press"<br><br>A riveting debut that oscillates between past and present, between the high price of hope and the betrayals of progress. Both an intimate family saga and a heartbreaking cautionary tale, <i>Work Like Any Other</i> is, above all, a starkly beautiful novel.--Cristina Garcia, author of Dreaming in Cuban<br><br>A striking debut about love and redemption, the heavy burdens of family and guilt and learning how to escape them. Powerfully told and lyrically written, there is not a false note in this book. Reeves is a major new talent.--Philipp Meyer, author of The Son<br><br>Beautifully written, this is an unusual and moving debut.-- "Sunday Times (UK)"<br><br>Reeves's novel, with its strong sense of time and place and its interrelating cast of inmates and guards, calls to mind those Stephen King books set in prisons, <i>The Green Mile</i> and <i>The Shawshank Redemptio</i>n, that were adapted into films. But it is Paul Harding's Pulitzer prize-winning novel, Tinkers, that is perhaps a better comparison here because of its many bewitching passages of description of electricity... Reeves is a fine wrangler of words, able to snake sentences of slithery charisma in and around each other. This is especially true in her depictions of time and place: her settings and the people in them stand firm and vivid in the mind's eye.-- "The Australian"<br><br>Thoughtful, absorbing... In this engrossing, vividly drawn debut, Reeves delivers a dazzlingly authentic portrait of a restless, remorseful mind.-- "Publishers Weekly"<br><br>Virginia Reeves has built her first novel with the craft and seriousness of purpose of a master carpenter. When the pieces come together, you're astonished at what a thing of beauty has appeared before your eyes.--Anthony Giardina, author of Norumbega Park<br><br>Virginia Reeves' assured and absorbing debut novel is a potent mix of icy honesty and heart-wrenching tenderness; it is certainly a Work Unlike Any Other, in that its humanity and optimism are salvaged from the darkest of places, from prison cells, from mining shafts, from decomposing marriages, and from the unforgiving workings of the land.--Jim Crace, author of Harvest and Being Dead<br><br>"<i>Work Like Any Other </i>is a beautifully accomplished first novel. She draws the reader in with such ease, and plumbs the depths of her characters with such acuteness and care, I was totally won over."--James Magnuson, author of The Hounds of Winter<br><br>"How brilliantly Virginia Reeves brings to life her protagonist, Roscoe T Martin, with his hatred of farming, his love of electricity and his long struggle to make amends to himself, his family and his friends. <i>Work Like Any Other</i> is a novel of fierce beauty and hard-won redemption. A wonderful debut."--Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy<br><br>"The world of this exquisite novel - 1920s Alabama - hasn't let go of me since I finished it. It's gorgeous, painful, original, and so true in all its details. Reeves writes with incredibly intelligent compassion, and in Roscoe Martin has created an extraordinary man who more than earns his place among the complicated population of the literary South. Thick with dread and beauty, this is a stunning chronicle of a time, a place, and a mind."--Fiona McFarlane, author of The Night Guest<br>
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