Sometimes you just want a simple story. You read a book and it's so lyrical and bewitching that you can't seem to put it away. And when you do, the story calls to be picked back up. This was one of those books. Simple, sensuous prose and a strong "voice."In the prologue you get to see the mysterious main character, Vine, who is said to be so beautiful that she puts a spell on the men who look at her: A thin smile showed itself across her fine, curved face. Her hair was divided by a perfectly straight, pale brown line down the middle of her head. She did not wear plaits, but let her hair swing behind her. It was so long that the ends of it were white from the dust in the sandy yard…The whites of her eyes were as clear as washed eggshells.She is Cherokee Indian. The voice I speak of is that of Vine's: a pure, simple, melodic tune that comes across in ungrammatical verbiage and peculiar syntax. It is alluring because it is not too often that you see such commitment from a writer to his first-person character perspective. This a tragic love story with a fine ending. It is about the harsh realities of family and community. Two brothers of Irish descent, and one Cherokee woman caught between a web of lies and deceit. A mountain town in Kentucky; a Cherokee Indian community isolated within the town, on what is referred to as RedBud Mountain. A town that considers them a threat. A woman and man from both ends of the town fall in love. Imagine the drama there: a woman who must leave her home and settle in with a community that shuns her kind. Inwardly, she struggles to keep a part of her family and heritage with her: I spied a little redbud growing in the shade of the woods. It was just beginning to shed its leaves and I knowed it was the wrong time to dig it up, but I had to have it. I went round to Daddy's shed and got a shovel and a swatch of burlap. I dug up the redbud, careful not to break the main root. I was real easy with it, whispering to it the whole time. I pressed damp dirt against the roots, wrapped it in burlap, then soaked it the round ball in the creek. It was surprising how light it was. It was so full of life, but it was no heavier than a finger. I put it out onto the shed, and little rivers of water run down the boards."If I fell in love with "voice" in this novel, consider me equally in love with "place." House's descriptions of the mountains are beautiful. Maybe it is because I currently live in a mountain town not too far from where he describes. I've driven around the mountains of Kentucky and North Carolina that he writes about, and I too have been fascinated with the Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia lines that he describes. Go to a store across the street and they will tell you that you're in Tennessee. Head across the street again for some coffee and you're now in Virginia. Fascinating. When he mentions birdcall and toads mating and creeks running, and crickets and…oh just the melody of the mountainside, he leaves me entranced because I'm reading exactly what I hear daily and those sounds are coming through the pages at me. I've never been to to the mountain hollers where Vine stays and still, I have enough imagery that I can envision them. Sometimes good stories and lessons emerge through beautiful simplicity. I walked out to the tree and put my finger to a leaf, smooth like it was coated with wax. I could feel its veins, wet and round. I had always found comfort in the leaves, in their silence. They were like a parchment that holds words of wisdom. Simply holding them in my hand gave me some of the peace a tree possesses. To be like that--to just be--that's the most noble thing of all.
A raving fiver!!! Astonishingly good. This is a book I could read again and there aren't many of those. The novel is set in 1917 Crow County, Kentucky. House grew up in Laurel County, Kentucky and says he based the fictional Crow County on the neighboring county of Leslie, where he spent much of his childhood. 'A Parchment of Leaves' is about home, belonging, love, family, betrayal, all loose and wondering around everywhere in the pages of this novel. The protagonist is Vine, a full blood Cherokee girl, who it is said was so beautiful that she bewitched all the men who saw her. "The truth was this: her beauty had so transfixed their thoughts that they could not keep their minds on the work at hand. They could think of nothing but her eyes - round and black as berries - and her brown arms, propped up on the slats of the paling fence. They saw her strong jawbone curving toward her chin, her blue-black hair flapping behind her like clothes hung out to dry. They were mesmerized by the image they had caught of her, and they carried it up the mountain in such a way that they neglected to watch where they were walking or the angle of their axes or the intensity of the fires they built." Then one day, the beautiful Vine meets Saul Sullivan, an Irish logger. Their meeting is dramatic and unforgettable. The details of Vine's and Saul's family are rich. The reader feels as though they know each member of the family, especially Sauls' brother Aaron, and his mother, Esme, who take on roles as important secondary characters. House carries us into the rush of the US towards its materialistic future. We see the townies looks down on the folks from the hollers and see the prejudices as they were then, basic, and raw, unfiltered. Vine is dazzling, and Saul is earthy. Esme is the mother hen that embraces them both, and later, we learn of Esme's secret. Aaron is a boy who grows up to become the wrong kind of man. The reader learns that the meaning of family is always shifting and that sometimes the foundation is pulled out from under that meaning so that it may topple altogether. What a delicate and fine textured story House weaves. Vine moves a redbud tree from her old home place to her new home. She coaxes it to live because she has moved it at the wrong time of year. Vine talks to the tree and pets it. Here's a quote from the novel regarding the redbud tree. "Then I noticed the new leaves on the redbud tree. The puple buds were being pushed away to make way for the leaves. I walked out to the tree and put my finger to a leaf, smooth like it was coated with wax. I could feel its veins, wet and round. I had always found comfort in the leaves, in their silence. They were like a parchment that hold words of wisdom. Simply holding them in my hand gave me some of the peace a tree possesses. To be like that - to just be - that's the most noble thing of all." Vine takes a lot from nature, from her setting, and as we see in this quote, she soaks it up like a sponge. However, it doesn't seem a coincidence that the redbud tree is also known as the Judas tree. Vine never seems separate from nature, but always part of it, and as her story plays out, the backdrop is the constant of the creek, the birds, the things growing in her garden, and her home that springs up from the trees that create it. House has created a lush setting and teemed it with characters that I grew to love.
What do You think about A Parchment Of Leaves (2003)?
What a beautiful and haunting book. Vine, a young Cherokee girl, saves Saul's younger brother Aaron from a snakebite in the early 1900s. Come 1917, Vine decides she wants to marry Saul, even though he's not a Cherokee, and moves away from her home to live with him. It's definitely not an easy transition, but it's made easier with the love that Saul's mother Esme gives to Vine, even though an interracial marriage at the time was almost unheard of. Things aren't all hunky-dory, however, as Aaron keeps staring at Vine like he wants her for himself, an issue that isn't resolved when he brings home his own wife, Aidia, a Melungeon from eastern Tennessee.Another reviewer had mentioned how slowly the book moves, but not in a bad way. As she had mentioned, it's like the seasons changing; you notice slight changes as time goes on, but before you know it, time has moved onto the next season, and it's only in the looking back that you realize how quickly time had really gone by. I really liked that analogy she made, and I think it's very apt. House makes nature its own character in his novel, with vivid descriptions of the mountain, of the plants, of the way the creek bubbles over the stones in the bottom. His descriptions are amazing; when Vine is out in the heat for two hours picking blackberries, the reader starts to sweat in sympathy and can almost feel the white-hot sun beating down on her head, and when she lays down in the cool waters of the creek, the reader feels the coolness of the water and how it feels against the fevered skin. House really does an excellent job of bringing the reader directly into the story, so that she feels exactly what the characters feel.If you enjoy beautiful, lyrical books, then this book is definitely for you. Highly recommend.
—Karyl
I’d been trying to get around to this one for some time. The fact that it was voted as one of the April reads within the group "On the Southern Literary Trail" was just the nudge I needed. How poignant that the timing just happened to be the same week that the redbud planted off our back patio was in full bloom (granted the 1/3 acre subdivision plot I occupy certainly isn't within the spirit of the turn of the century Eastern Kentucky in which House describes the redbuds, flowers, creeks, meadows, hog killings, and house raisings). It was a step back in time, but the primary themes are no doubt relevant to our modern world just the same. For some, the author’s gentle approach might not hit the endorphin receptors with enough vigor, but for me, I think he did a masterful job of writing in so many elements so subtlety. You really don’t become aware of how impactful the entire thing is until you have just about finished it all up. Much like Clay's Quilt the story is largely a character story; personally, this one was more captivating. The basic story line is that a Cherokee beauty who had been raised to almost flee from her heritage does just that by marrying a young local boy who had originally been sent to clear the timber from the mountainsides towering above her family's home place. In leaving with her man, she says goodbye to this world, and the struggles of a "normal life" ensue. Much more than that would be spoiler.At the heart, it is a story about family, humanity, meanness, kindness, secrets, love, infatuation, personalities, and prejudices. Do bad things happen for reason of curse, chance, or perhaps to provide contrast to the great and good things of life? Forgiveness is powerful, sometimes undeserved but necessary in most cases. People are going to keep being mean to one another, and the trick is to decide whether to let other's poison seep into your pores or allow it to only sicken those who emit it. Vine, the main character sums it up when she states:"It will come back on you, what you've done," I said. "A person can only do so much wrong before it catches up with him. Someday it will find you out!"4.5 stars that gets rounded to a 5 because of House's interest in great music (he also blogs on modern folk, indie rock, and Americana music) and by virtue of a great looking book cover.
—Josh
I really liked this book. Very nice descriptions. I wasn't bored for a second. I think Saul and Vine was a good match. However I don't like that Saul is never there. Aaron is very mysterious. He's violent to his wife and tried to rape Vine. Vine killed Aaron, but didn't tell the rest of the family. She buried Aaron so his wife would never find him. I don't like Aaron and how he comes onto Vine. Aaron has no respect for anybody. He treats his wife and family badly. Vine feels sory for killing Aar
—Darcy Stewart
