by Mary Sojourner
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2014
287 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Nell Walker, an L.A. executive who believed she had everything and learns she had nothing, finds herself boarding a bus rolling away from bitter loss toward a fiercely beautiful landscape, an impossible love affair, and a fight for the earth that brings her back to a past richer than anything she could have imagined.
"The writing is fine but I really didn't like or care about any of the too-many characters. The story is mostly dialogue and to me, they all sound the same—everyone talks in a combination of hard-boiled, foul-mouthed and crude seventies 'hip' lingo. Some people might enjoy it—people who read hard-boiled detective stories populated with a lot of middle-aged, down-on-their-luck losers, but it's a genre I don't especially like." - BookBrowse
"Starred Review. This standout ecological novel from Arizona author Sojourner (Going Through Ghosts) features picturesque prose, a vivid western setting, and sharply drawn characters." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Ever-ascending Sojourner cooks up wrenching sorrow and hilarious banter, environmental and moral conundrums, magnetizing characters, and a place of transcendent beauty in this intoxicating, provocative, and gloriously told desert tale of wildness and community, unexpected bonds and deep legacies, trauma and healing." - Booklist
"Written with passion and humor, 29 takes the reader on a journey of hope, humanity, and love." - Jana Richman, author of Riding in the Shadows of Saints, The Last Cowgirl, and The Ordinary Truth
"Certainly Mary's prose and storytelling is crystalline and lovely, a kind of geode broth, filled with light and piquancy." - David Kranes, author of The Legend's Daughter and The National Tree
"29 holds the ragged weeping desert open, then kisses closed her wounds. A love letter to what we frequently deem unloveable, 29 is a wide-armed triumph of hope." - Laraine Herring, author of Ghost Swamp Blues and Writing Begins with the Breath
"This is a story that will stay with the readers and, perhaps, bring them home to their own place, and the importance of fighting for what you love." - Susan Lang, author of the Mojave novels trilogy
"The language is sharp as a butcher's blade, the dialogue rings true and hard, and the story cuts deeply into its reader." - H. Lee Barnes, author of Cold Deck, The Lucky, and Car Tag
"Sojourner's new novel, much like the desert landscapes in which it is set, will never speak to those who see the Mojave as an annoying blur between L.A. and Vegas, but those adventurous enough (or lost enough) to wander off I15 will find a world bursting with fragile beauty, tenacious life, and rock hard truth." - Giles Carwyn, author of Queen of Oblivion
This information about 29 was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mary Sojourner is the author of two novels, Sisters of the Dream and Going Through Ghosts; the short story collection, Delicate; an essay collection, Bonelight: Ruin and Grace in the New Southwest; and memoirs, Solace: Rituals of Loss and Desire and She Bets Her Life. She is an intermittent NPR commentator and the author of many essays, columns and op-eds for High Country News, Writers on the Range and other publications. A graduate of the University of Rochester, Sojourner teaches writing in private circles, one-on-one, at colleges and universities, writing conferences and book festivals. She believes in both the limitations and possibilities of healing through writing—the most powerful tool she has found for doing what is necessary to mend. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
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