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   Summary and Book Reviews

Jewel: Summary and book reviews of Jewel by Bret Lott, plus links to an excerpt from Jewel and a biography of Bret Lott.

Jewel

Jewel
by Bret Lott
Hardcover: Jan 1999,
255 pages.
Paperback: Jan 1999,
368 pages.

Publication information
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews

Author Biography
Books by this Author
Critics' Opinion:   very good
Readers' Rating:  Three Stars
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BOOK SUMMARY

In the backwoods of Mississippi, a land of honeysuckle and grapevine, Jewel and her husband, Leston, are truly blessed; they have five fine children. When Brenda Kay is born in 1943, Jewel gives thanks for a healthy baby, last-born and most welcome. Jewel is the story of how quickly a life can change; how, like lightning, an unforeseen event can set us on a course without reason or compass. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction.

BOOK REVIEWS

Media Reviews

Good  The Chicago Tribune
Bret Lott's Jewel is a beautifully crafted first-person epic of one poor southern woman's personal duel with God....This is a voice we don't want to stop hearing....Some of the tenderest scenes of family love since those in Dickens.

Good  The New York Times Book Review
Sweeping and beautifully written....a parable for our age.

Very Good  The Los Angeles Times
Lott is one of the most important and imaginative writers in America today. His eye for detail is unparalleled; his vision -- where he looks -- is like no one else's in this country.

Very Good  The Boston Globe
Bret Lott has a gift for making the ordinary seem luminous. In Jewel, he applies his art to a broad canvas and produces what may stand as his masterpiece....Lott matches the honest strength of his characters with that of his prose. His Jewel is a force of nature, her story rising out of a perfect, seamless union of teller and tale.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated 1 of 5 of 5 by Linda Anders
Jewel by BRET LOTT
This book was devastatingly boring. The writing has a very confusing style that goes back and forth in time without warning. It is very obscene and I think the author had a little too much fun using the "N" word. The writing is nor just...   Read More

Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by ronan
jewel
This book so confusing , I become too lazy to read it.

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