Sheri Reynolds is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including The Rapture of Canaan. She lives in Virginia and teaches at Old Dominion University, where she is the Ruth and Perry Morgan Chair of Southern Literature.
“Ms. Reynolds’s poetic gifts are uncommonly powerful.” —The New
York Times
“Reynolds . . . is a gifted writer with a deceptively simple style
and a keen ear for dialogue.” —The Boston Globe
“The newest and most exciting voice to emerge in contemporary
Southern fiction.” —San Francisco Bay Guardian
From Publishers Weekly:
Reynolds structures this novel as a memoir, with the title
character announcing in a foreword that she wishes to share the
story of her journey ""in the form of this devotional . . . in the
hopes that some of what I experienced might help you with your own
journey."" Myrtle's ""journey"" begins on the morning she is to
have elective surgery to please her husband, Craig. Instead, she
drives aimlessly away from her Virginia home with a stowaway, a
local homeless man nicknamed ""Hellcat"" who had been sleeping in
the back of her truck. She realizes she is running away from her
unfulfilled life and the manipulative husband she refers to as ""a
tyrant."" The travelers, with no set destination, find themselves
inexplicably herded onto a bus full of old hippies that drives them
to the Raven Creek Center for Spiritual Enlightenment. Here Myrtle
learns about meditation, takes a body image workshop, and has a
vision of a talking fox in her tent. When Myrtle's 10 days at Raven
Creek are over and her companion decides to stay behind, she must
decide whether to return home or keep moving, and how to
incorporate her new life lessons into a happy existence. In Myrtle
Cribb, novelist and professor of southern literature Reynolds gives
us an endearing character, who describes herself aptly as ""the
sort of person who has trouble with obvious things,"" and her story
is the relatable experience of trying to find meaning in an
ordinary life. (Oct.)
Reviewed on 10/05/2012
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