Hollow Ground

by Stephen Marion

Book Overview

When Gary left Zinctown, Tennessee, fourteen years ago, he left behind a father he couldn't please, a long-dead brother whose memory was inescapable, and a girl who was carrying his child. He didn't... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565123239
• ISBN13: 9781565123236
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Listening Closely

With an ear close to the ground of his native region and the characters that inhabit Zinctown, Mr. Marion has written a compelling debut novel that is anything but hollow. What we see in this writing is a keen eye and voice for sense of place that doesn't falter or devle into sentimentality--tough achievements in a coming of age story. Unlike other novels in a similar vein, Hollow Ground challenges its readers to keep pace with the narrative and concentrate on its charcters. If read with the same ear and eye as the author, Hollow Ground, can and is richly rewarding.

A Great Surprise

Okay, I admit it. I bought this book simply because I loved the wonderful cover and because of Annie Dillard's glowing blurb ("one of the most notable debuts in recent memory"--hey, if you can't trust Annie Dillard, who can you trust?). I'm glad I trusted my instinct. This story completely swept me away. The characters were all complex and vivid, the place was fully realized, and the writing was so good that I could hardly believe this was Marion's first novel. This is a wonderful, suspenseful, lyrical, and engaging debut.

A Stunning Debut

Every once in awhile a debut novel comes along that assures us that we have found a writer for the long-haul. HOLLOW GROUND is such a novel. The prose is so lyrical that sometimes I had to pause to savor the way words were put together on the page. At the heart of the book is Taft, a young boy who has only recently met his ne'er-do-well father, Gary. Although Taft is growing up fast, this is no common, been-told-a-hundred times coming of age story. This is as authentic as it gets. We are introduced to Taft's hilarious, sometimes frightening best friend and Tanya, the girl whom Taft both longs for and can't quite understand. But most of all Marion completely captures a town and its people. This book introduces the best new Appalachian writer there is, period. At the same time, Marion is not an Appalachian writer. His prose reminds me more of Richard Russo or Larry Brown...tight, beautiful, well-crafted but never so polished it doesn't remain raw, and completely stunning in both its intimacy and its scope. If you want to read a beautifully written book that will involve your senses and make you feel as if you've completely escaped, read HOLLOW GROUND. It's my favorite book of the year so far.