Junction Of Earth And Sky by Susan Buttenwieser

 

Junction Of Earth And Sky by Susan Buttenwieser.

Published 1st August 2024 by Manilla Press.

From the cover of the book:

Coming of age in 1940s England, Alice's life is thrown into chaos under the shadow of the war. Forced to let go of her hopes and dreams, she finds herself uprooted to America and a life she never could have imagined.

Decades later, it is the 1990s and Alice's granddaughter Marnie is living out of a worn-out Chevy Nova, running heroin and cocaine along the New England coastline. Yet she carries with her memories of a nurtured childhood in hardscrabble Rhode Island, where all the disappointments of her young parents were eclipsed by her grandmother's love.

Spanning six decades and two continents, from the shores of WWII England to the underside of 1990s America, JUNCTION OF EARTH AND SKY unfolds -in multiple timelines -the enduring bond of grandmother and granddaughter, plagued by the past but determined to find their place in the world against all the odds.

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1993, New England. Marnie, a young addict, anxiously waits in a get-away car for her drug dealer boyfriend to hold-up a pharmacy.

1940, Spithandle, England. Teenager Alice experiences first love, but in the uncertain times of war, the future that awaits her is one she could never have imagined.

In a sweeping novel that covers six decades, Susan Buttenweiser tells the tangled stories of grandmother Alice and her granddaughter Marnie, taking you on a journey filled with tragedy, loss and heartbreak, but also of fierce love. 

The novel unfurls in multiple timelines, weaving between vignettes of Alice and Marnie's lives, and of the tempestuous relationship of Alice's son/Marnie's father, Sonny, and Marnie's mother, Denise. At first, the chapters feel very much like linked pieces that fit together via common themes (perhaps hinting that Buttenwieser has previously concentrated on short stories), and it takes a little while to sense the shape of her writing, but there is a compelling flow to it that gradually emerges, enhanced by a recurring motif of the pull of the sea. Different narrative styles are used well too, flipping between nostalgic remembrances and cutting scenes that anchor you in time and place. 

Beginning with the tense scene where Marnie sits waiting in a car for the man who has brought her to rock bottom, Buttenwieser's prose lays bare the hard knocks life has visited on this family, and for a book that is under 300 pages, she covers a lot of ground. Alice was my favourite character. Her wartime coming-of-age tale slowly unravels with of the pain of first love, tragic partings, and the upheaval that set her on a path to a new life in America. There is a hazy quality to the parts of Alice's story set in England, but once Buttenwieser moves her across the Atlantic, you really feel the immediacy of the troubles of her adult life and her yearnings for connection. In stark contrast, the sections of the story about Sonny and Denise's relationship are as as gritty as they come straight out of the gate, holding nothing back in terms of the drama of marital strife, domestic violence, and addiction. Somewhere in-between lies Marnie, constantly torn between warm childhood memories, and the harsh realities of a life in freefall.

The themes of trauma give you a repeated battering, and there are lots of tear-jerking lows, but there is warmth here too. Golden moments of friendship and support of wider family shine through, and the bond that Alice and Marnie share is lovely. Alice's strength in trying to off-set the toll of the family dysfunction that has echoed down the generations is very powerful too.

This is an impressive first novel. It takes a toll on your emotions, but leaves you in a heart-warming place where the hopeful shoots of healing promise better things to come. Just what I want in a sensitively written family drama.

Junction of Earth and Sky is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Zaffre for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Compulsive Readers for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Susan Buttenwieser is the author of the short story collection, We Were Lucky With the Rain (Four Way Books) and she has been awarded several fiction fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. 

Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and she has taught creative writing in New York City schools, libraries, homeless shelters, juvenile detention facilities and at a women's maximum-security prison. 

Junction of Earth and Sky is her first novel.