A Crooked Tree, by Una Mannion

A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Set in a rural area on Valley Forge Mountain in Pennsylvania in the 1980’s, this is a coming of age story of a 15-year-old girl. Libby lives with her siblings and divorced mother in a wooded area, after the death of her Irish-born father whom she adored. The novel starts with a jolt when her unpredictable mother leaves her younger sister Ellen by the side of a road 5 miles from home after an argument. From that moment the book doesn’t let the reader go. Mannion immerses us in the teen culture of the 1980’s – the music, the clothes, the teens hanging out drinking and smoking weed on the mountain, the slights and paybacks between schoolmates. Libby is on the cusp of adulthood, and still feels like the mountain is her special place – the paths so familiar she can walk them in the dark; the destinations like Washington’s Headquarters, the two towers, and her hiding place called the Kingdom, located near a crooked tree. She studies trees, while her brother Thomas scans the stars and 12-year-old Ellen draws amazing sketches. Little Beatrice, her mother’s favorite, has a different father they have never met. Their oldest sister, Marie, turned 18 and about to move to Philadelphia, is the closest thing they have to stability. Then there is the mysterious motor-cycle-riding bad-boy, Wilson McVay, who is rumored to deal drugs and have committed robbery. In the unfolding sequence of events when Ellen doesn’t immediately return home, Wilson becomes the family’s unlikely protector. In typical teen fashion, the siblings keep a disturbing secret about Ellen from their mother and other adults. As it turns out, the adults keep secrets, too. Mixed in with ordinary events like baby-sitting a neighbor’s little boys, mowing the lawn, making costumes for a small-town parade and shopping at the mall, a stranger comes to the mountain seeking retribution – and the novel crescendos into a tangle of violence, with the police one step behind. In the course of that evening, Libby steps up to protect those she loves, the secrets spill out -- and she and her family are forever changed. Although I grew up in the 50’s I loved this novel, which catapulted me back to my own teenage years, with its similar mix of secrets, tensions, and things not understood.



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