Bill Cleaver (1920–1981)

“Friends were another thing Miss Breathitt believed in and thought wonderful. Friends, she said, improved talents and happiness and all of us should take care to make some.”
― Vera Cleaver, Where the Lilies Bloom

This is a book about Mary Call, a strong minded young woman trying to keep her family together after the loss of her parents. She feeds and clothes her siblings and tries to keep up the pretense that her parents are still there, for if outsiders knew what had happened they would surely separate the family.

I. LOVED. THIS.

The book is a wonderful read. There are themes of loss and poverty. The characters start to feel like old friends. One gets invested and roots for the sassy Mary Call and her small group of siblings as they fight to stay together in the North Carolina mountains.

This is an exceptional and very special book that nobody should miss out on.… (more)

In the mountains of North Carolina, at some unspecified time in the past (I pictured the 1930s as I read) a down-and-out family of tenant farmers suffers a dreadful string of catastrophes, but is held together by 14-year-old Mary Call, who takes charge.
Their mother died before the story begins, and their father dies shortly into it, leaving Mary Call, a younger brother and sister, and her older, but somewhat mentally handicapped sister Devola, who is 18. Mary Call decides the only way the four of them can survive, is to keep it a secret that their father has died. Otherwise, the county social workers will come take them away. They make a little money by wildcrafting (gathering medicinal plants and selling them in town) and manage to stay in their ramshackle house because Mary Call sort of tricked the owner into giving it to them.
Mary Call manages to hold things steady for a while, but as the story works towards its close, her efforts begin to unravel.
Mary Call is a fierce heroine, and I loved her for it. But I loved her all the more at the end, when she reluctantly acknowledges that even she may need some help once in a while.… (more)