Publication Date: July 14, 2015Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Formats: eBook, Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0544470192
Pages: 304
Genre: Historical Fiction
A debut novel chronicling the life and loves of a headstrong, earthy, and magnetic heroine
Eastern Oklahoma, 1928. Eighteen-year-old Maud Nail lives with her rogue father and sensitive brother on one of the allotments parceled out by the U.S. Government to the Cherokees when their land was confiscated for Oklahoma’s statehood. Maud’s days are filled with hard work and simple pleasures, but often marked by violence and tragedy, a fact that she accepts with determined practicality. Her prospects for a better life are slim, but when a newcomer with good looks and books rides down her section line, she takes notice. Soon she finds herself facing a series of high-stakes decisions that will determine her future and those of her loved ones.
Maud’s Line is accessible, sensuous, and vivid. It will sit on the bookshelf alongside novels by Jim Harrison, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, and other beloved chroniclers of the American West and its people.
My review:
Four Stars
copy received from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for an honest review
Four Stars
copy received from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for an honest review
When I started reading Maude's Line by Margaret Verbel I was surprised to learn it was a debut novel. I thought the writing was very good and so was the pacing of the plot. I really loved learning about Eastern Oklahoma. I thought the writer painted a very vivid image of what life was like for Maude and her family. Maude was an endearing character and I could not help but love her. I thought that she was strong and resilient and also very humane. Although the main draw for me was Maude, I thought that Verble painted very clear images of her family and who they were. She was able to show how each person in the family eventually came to terms with their own destiny/ life choices. Overall, this was a very satisfying read. I highly recommend it and plan to keep it close by for a re-read in the future.
PRAISE FOR MAUD'S LINE
"Maud is refreshingly open and honest about her own sexuality though conscious of her place as a woman in a sexist society, always careful not to insult the intelligence or manhood of her male friends and relations. Verble writes in a simple style that matches the hardscrabble setting and plainspoken characters. Verble, herself a member of the Cherokee Nation, tells a compelling story peopled with flawed yet sympathetic characters, sharing insights into Cherokee society on the parcels of land allotted to them after the Trail of Tears." —Kirkus“Writing as though Daniel Woodrell nods over one shoulder and the spirit of Willa Cather over the other, Margaret Verble gives us Maud, a gun-toting, book-loving, dream-chasing young woman whose often agonizing dilemmas can only be countered by sheer strength of heart.” —Malcolm Brooks, author of Painted Horses
"I want to live with Maud in a little farm in a little valley under the shadow of a mountain wall. Maud's Line is an absolutely wonderful novel and Margaret Verble can drop you from great heights and still easily pick you up. I will read anything she writes, with enthusiasm.” —Jim Harrison, author of Dalva, Legends of the Fall, and The Big Seven
“Margaret Verble gives us a gorgeous window onto the Cherokee world in Oklahoma, 1927. Verble’s voice is utterly authentic, tender and funny, vivid and smart, and she creates a living community – the Nail family, Maud herself, her father, Mustard, and brother, Lovely, and the brothers Blue and Early, the quiet, tender-mouthed mare Leaf, and the big landscape of the bottoms – the land given to the Cherokees after the Trail of Tears. Beyond the allotments, it opens up into the wild, which is more or less what Verble does with this narrative. A wonderful debut novel.” —Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARGARET VERBLE, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, has set her novel on her family's allotment land. She currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, and Old Windsor, England.BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE
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