Sweeping Up Glass: Summary and book reviews of Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall, plus links to an excerpt from Sweeping Up Glass and a biography of Carolyn Wall.
Sweeping Up Glass
by Carolyn Wall
Hardcover: Aug 2008,
278 pages.
Paperback: Aug 2009,
336 pages.
Destined to be a classic, Sweeping Up Glass is a tough and tender novel of love, race, and justice, and a ferocious, unflinching look at the power of family.
Olivia Harker Cross owns a strip of mountain in Pope County, Kentucky, a land where whites and blacks eke out a living in separate, tattered kingdoms and where silver-faced wolves howl in the night. But someone is killing the wolves of Big Foley Mountain–and Olivia is beginning to realize how much of her own bitter history she’s never understood: Her mother’s madness, building toward a fiery crescendo. Her daughter’s flight to California, leaving her to raise Will’m, her beloved grandson. And most of all, her town’s fear, for Olivia has real and dangerous enemies.
Now this proud, lonely woman will face her mother and daughter, her neighbors and the wolf hunters of Big Foley Mountain. And when she does, she’ll ignite a conflict that will embroil an entire community–and change her own life in the most astonishing of ways.
BOOK REVIEWS
BookBrowse Fifty-three BookBrowse members reviewed this book for "First Impressions", with forty-seven rating it 4 or 5 out of 5 stars – one of our highest ratings to date. This is what they say… Sweeping Up Glass definitely 'swept me up' from the very first page (Linda G)... You will fall in love with the unusual cast of characters, share their loves, losses and pain, and eventually be swept into a fast paced race to a conclusion that you cannot possibly have imagined (Beth P). It's a great choice for book clubs, lots of 'hidden secrets' and issues for discussion (Linda G). Read all the First Impressions Reviews(Reviewed by BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers). Full Review (1344 words).
Media Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Wall gives her heroine a powerful voice in this haunting debut.
Booklist
This debut novel does so much more than traditional, tightly focused mysteries. It has a powerfully, sometimes uncomfortably, realized setting; characters who seem drawn from life; and a wide-ranging plot, bursting with complications ... A gripping story and a truly original voice.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. As the action moves inexorably to its explosive conclusion, Olivia must come to grips with past betrayals, thereby earning a second chance at love, redemption and long overdue justice.
Library Journal
Starred Review. The suspense is gripping, the danger is very real, and the reader gets caught up in Wall's powerful, moving debut. Highly recommended for all collections.
O, The Oprah Magazine
Haunting, lyrical, entirely absorbing, Sweeping Up Glass deserves a place on the shelf next to classics like True Grit and To Kill A Mockingbird. Carolyn Wall is a brilliant storyteller and this book is a wonderful read
The Boston Globe
This extraordinary debut novel, both a "what happened" and a "whodunit," explores survival and the guilt that can accompany it. The writing is filled with arresting images, bitter humor, and characters with palpable physical presence. The fresh voice of that clear-eyed narrator reminded me of Scout in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I literally could not put it down.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Fran Sweeping Up Glass I enjoyed the book. I read it while I was on vacation, (accompanied by one husband, six children and six grandchildren). But I found it to be an interesting "discussion" of a period of time we know about but may not have been aware of... Read More
Rated of 5
by Bonnie Thought provoking and more This is a "must read." I agree with other reviewers that it was hard to get into at first, but later realized that I needed that background to understand the rest. I am recommending it to my friends. Carolyn Wall really tells a story;... Read More
War, natural disaster, reckless gods and the recognition of impermanence in the world are just some of the threads that AS Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark.
A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, exploring how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths.
Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants, Margaret Powell's classic memoir of her time in service is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high.
Vivid, daring, and unforgettable, The Printmaker's Daughter shines fresh light on art, loyalty, and the tender and indelible bond between a father and daughter.
I read The Healing in two sittings it is a fascinating story of plantation life at the beginning of the Civil War. Granada, a slave newborn child...
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The Uncommon Reader is a novella by novelist and playwright, Alan Bennett. The story starts with the Queen coming across the mobile library van...
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Amazon to open bricks and mortar store in Seattle(Feb 07 2012) Last week, the word in the blogosphere was that Amazon was considering opening a bricks-and-mortar store. Over the weekend goodereader.com added substance to...
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Arizona bills Amazon for $53 million in uncollected sales tax(Feb 06 2012) The ongoing sales tax battle between many US states and large online retailers, most notably Amazon, continues with a thrust from Arizona which, last week,...
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(1344 words).
Kirkus Reviews
of 5
by Fran
of 5
by Bonnie
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