Kathryn's prose is poignant, tangy, sweet, loving, wanting, needing and so satisfying! ~ Diane Buccheri, Publisher, OCEAN Magazine
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
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An unflinching look at how we find our way home . . .
Kathryn Magendie, a West Virginia woman who came to Western North Carolina via South Louisiana, shows why plot is just the wheels of a narrative vehicle. Without voice, character, poetry and detail also, all you've got is a go-kart.In her debut novel, “Tender Graces,” Magendie builds up the plot — a prodigal daughter story — into a sustained entertainment through an exuberant mountain portrayal Asheville Citizen Times
This is a novel of family, both good and badBaton Rouge Advocate
A force of lyrical storytellingSmoky Mountain News
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR GUYS: It may have a soft, pink cover but it ain’t that kind of book. Kathryn Magendie’s Virginia Kate has plenty of what my grandmother called “brass,” treats us to earfuls of authentic dialogue, and gradually reveals a story not easily forgotten. We will soon read more, I hope, from Magendie’s pen. She’s real. Wayne Caldwell Author of Cataloochee and Requiem by Fire
Excerpt:
Between Pocahontas and Summers County, where Momma was born, where Grandma Faith lived and then died on her own mountain, I look up and beyond at my heritage. All the mystery, all the secrets, all the loss and gain of our lives.
When Momma was a girl, she ran on the mountain wild and dirty until my daddy came to fetch her away. I see my momma just as clear as if I were there myself. The old house perched on the mountain, and Daddy walking up to knock on their door.
I shake away the memories so I can concentrate on what’s ahead. The address Uncle Jonah gave me is easy to find, right off the highway. I park, go inside to fetch Momma, walk with my head up and my feet clomping hard. There’s no one else here. I’m alone.
Grandma Faith says, “No, you are not alone. I’m here.”
When I see how it is with Momma, I’m relieved she made Uncle Jonah take care of things before I got here. But it makes her even more unreal as I put her in the car with me and set my wheels turning towards the little white house where we all lived for a time, where Momma stayed behind alone when she let us go, one by one. I take her around the curves, down the long weaving road, between mountain and memory. Then I’m there. The two hills stand guard over the holler; my headlights glow before me as I pull into the dirt driveway.
Nothing has changed.
Tender Graces Trailer
COMING IN 2010: SECRET GRACES, THE VIRGINIA KATE SAGA CONTINUES . . .
