Sweeping Up Glass

by Carolyn Wall

Book Overview

Destined to be a classic, Sweeping Up Glass is a tough and tender novel of love, race, and justice, and a ferocious, unflinching look at the power of family. Olivia Harker Cross owns a strip of mountain in Pope County, Kentucky, a land where whites and blacks eke out a living in separate, tattered kingdoms and where silver-faced wolves howl in the night. But someone is killing the wolves of Big Foley Mountain-and Olivia is beginning to realize how...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385343035
• ISBN13: 9780385343039
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Bantam Dell
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Best Book I have read in a long time.

I love Southern Novels and mysteries along with suspense. This book takes the cake. I highly reccomend it. A very good read.

This exciting story swept me away...

Sweeping Up Glass is a stirring debut novel by a fresh, new voice. With a start like this, I expect author Carolyn Wall to be a strong, prolific literary force in the future. Though some reviewers found this setting in the brutally segregated Depression-era-Kentucky to be uncomfortable, it wasn't to me. My grandparents and parents were born in Kentucky. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression years there, with my parents escaping the worst of it by moving to Ohio. I was born in Ohio, but heard many stories from that era that remind me of Wall's main character, Olivia Harker Cross. Olivia is a strong, brave, self-sufficient woman, very much like my late mother and Grannie Sue. I liked and related to her right from the gripping start of this book. In Sweeping Up Glass, Olivia survives the harshness of the Kentucky mountain life by running a small grocery store which is also her spare living quarters, with sleeping areas partitioned off by makeshift curtains. When her out-of-wedlock grandson Will'm is thrust upon her by her wild daughter, Olivia makes the best of the situation, cares for him and teaches him all her hard-earned survival skills. To add to the drama of this story, Olivia's crazy mother, who lives out back in a tar-paper shack, stirs the plot, making it twice as hard for her daughter. Olivia and Will'm love and respect the wolves that roam the hills around her property and are trying to protect them from poachers who kill them for sport, angering these cruel men so that she and the boy become endangered themselves. It's a hard life with Olivia always scrambling to feed them...always pressed for time and energy as she tries to fight these men by wit and cunning... She must encounter her own mysterious past to save herself and the boy; in so doing, she uncovers ugly secrets about the neighboring trouble-makers that endanger not only herself and the boy but also the impoverished community of blacks who have protected her since the death of her adored father. She comes to grips with past betrayals and earns a second chance at love in an explosive ending where justice is finally served. As I said above, the strong, narrative voice of the heroine grabbed me right away. The first sentence reads: The long howl of a wolf rolls over me like a toothache. Talk about intriguing openings--Wow! Truthfully, I need go no further than that one sentence to show the depth of Wall's talent. Anyone can see that that sentence alone speaks volumes: 1) it paints a picture of setting and mood; 2) it makes one wonder what's going on; 3) it grabs the reader; 4) it stirs emotion; and 5) it ends with an appropriate, yet creative simile. This lone sentence speaks more about this author than a volume of praise, but I'll list some of the things I like about her writing, anyway: * Fresh voice. * Detailed, accurate description. * Suspenseful Pacing. * Realistic dialogue with correct vernacular * Fleshed-out, believable characters. * Original, exci

'Mockingbird' comparisons aside, a great book in its own right

I learned long ago that when a book's blurb says that the book is like (insert name of a popular book here), they are setting you up for disappointment. Often, authors try to cash in on the success of a bestseller by pumping out a cheap knock-off of the original and they seldom succeed. Even so, when I saw 'Sweeping Up Glass' compared to 'To Kill A Mockingbird', one of my all-time favorite books, I couldn't resist and ordered it immediately. I'm glad that I did. Carolyn Wall is no 'wannabe'. She's a great author in her own right. Is 'Sweeping Up Glass' a new 'Mockingbird'? No, but there are a lot of striking similarities. Both have young girls living with a kindhearted father in the South, assuming you consider the Kentucky hill country 'South'. Both address the subjects of racism and poverty. In both books, black people are helpful, kindly and hard-working and white people's behavior is often contingent on the color of a person's skin. Both books address essential deficiencies in the legal systems of the day and both books have dangerous, drunken bullies. Nevertheless, 'Sweeping Up Glass' is not a pale imitation of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. It is an excellent novel in its own right, full of well developed characters, good and evil, and a thrilling plot full of dark secrets, senseless violence and great courage. The last 100 pages will likely keep you up well into the night to find out how it ends. While Harper Lee wrote 'Mockingbird' from the perspective of an optimistic young girl who learns about life, Carolyn Wall's debut novel views life through the eyes of a middle aged grandmother who has spent decades being beaten down by poverty, neglect and tragedy. It has a brooding, melancholy air about it that is reminiscent of Norman Blake's poignant bluegrass ballad, 'Lonesome Jenny'. After a while the reader wonders if the sun ever shines in Aurora, Kentucky, and then realizes that the gloom is more a representation of Olivia's outlook than the weather. This is a powerful story and well worth your time.

Now What It Appears to Be

This is a literary novel that tells a powerful story in the voice of an unforgettable woman. For most of this book I thought I was reading a beautifully written novel about the hard life of a poor woman in rural Kentucky -- sort of like The Beans of Egypt, Maine(also a fine novel). I was, of course, but the author performed an amazing sleight of hand as the story developed, and suddenly nothing was as it first seemed, and the book became a fascinating mystery. The author's gift for characterization is prodigious -- rarely have I met such a memorable crew, vivid in mind even weeks after finishing the novel.

Sweeping up Glass

What a page turning. It was very hard to put this book down. The author was able to bring us right into the settings. I believe the author has done her homework for the depression era and did it very well. I really enjoyed how her showed for special lifes creatures are how they were cared for. I would recommend this book and look forward to her next book.

An excellent debut

SWEEPING UP GLASS (Novel/Mys-Olivia Harker-Kentucky-1930s) - Ex Wall, Carolyn D. - 1st book Poisoned Pen Press, 2008, US Hardcover - ISBN: 9781590585122 First Sentence: The long howl of a wolf rolls over me like a toothache. Olivia Harker lives with her grandson in a run-down, cold-water building with a grocery out front, a small bedroom, kitchen and sleeping alcove in back and an outhouse. Her emotionally abusive mother lives an a shack separate from the house. Someone is killing silver-faced wolves on her property. She knows who, but the why takes her back through her life's story until it places her, her family and friends in danger for their lives. This is quite a story. It covers 40+ years of a woman's life. It's a hard life filled with emotional pain, hard work and disappointment while Olivia is hardened by it, in the way steel is tempered by fire and pressure. While Olivia is the primary character, those around her are just as real and memorable. It's hard to say much about the story without, in some way, diminishing it. It is sometimes painful to read, buy only because Olivia is such a wonderful, fully-realized character. Wall doesn't just give you a sense of place. She takes you to the sights, sounds and smells of Kentucky hill country along with very real emotions that can make it an uncomfortable and painful read at times. But it's wonderfully done; a book I shan't soon forget and one I'm very glad to have read.