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Eden
A hypnotic, lyrical debut novel about a young black girl in the deep south who comes to confront the realities of sex, race, disease, and death, by a writer of extraordinary emotional depth.
“A profoundly raw and gripping read,” (The Baltimore Sun) Olympia Vernon’s fearless and wildly original debut novel explodes on the first page and sustains a tightrope intensity until the last. Set in Pyke County, Mississippi, Eden is a raw, heartbreaking, and enlightening novel that marks the emergence of a stunning and original talent. Narrated by fourteen-year-old Maddy Dangerfield, Eden opens in the moments after Maddy has impulsively drawn a naked woman on the pages of Genesis in bright red lipstick during Sunday service. The community is scandalized, and her devout, long-suffering mother’s response to her transgression is to force her to spend weekends nursing her dying Aunt Pip, an outcast who lives on the edge of town.
From then on, Maddy must negotiate her two worlds: at the house where she lives with her hard-working, Bible-reading mother, Faye, and her father, Chevrolet—a one-armed drunk, gambler and womanizer—she is both a reluctant participant in and astute observer of the strange and confounding dynamics of her sometimes violent, sometimes tender family. (Years before, Maddy’s grandmother—her mother’s mother—chopped of Chevrolet’s arm and fed it to the pigs after he and Pip were found together in the back room as Faye entertained friends from the church—and ever since, he has been am emasculated, desperate man—drinking and gambling his wife’s money away, leaving her to clean up his mess time and again.) And then out on Commitment Road, she is caretaker to her Aunt Pip, whose only friend is her eccentric neighbor, Fat. Maddy’s time with Pip and Fat opens her eyes to the exhilaration of speaking your own mind, living your life on your own terms and without apology, and also to the cost extracted by both. She learns that there are strengths that belong to women alone, and also that there is a kind of ravaging vulnerability that is terrifying and inescapable, and uniquely female.
The world Maddy inherits is one of injustice and hypocrisy, one that requires black people work for the whites for little to no pay; that sent her Uncle Sugar to jail for raping a white woman—no questions asked—when Maddy was just a baby; that preaches Christian love and forgiveness even as its actions reflect the very opposite. But Maddy soon learns that there is something that can work to oppose those truths, and that is knowledge; having the will and the ability to look beneath the surface, to question what others take as a given. By the end of the novel, newly acquainted with mortality and her own fierce strength, Maddy comes to bear both the burden and the blessing of that knowledge.
In lush, vivid brushstrokes, Olympia Vernon conjures a world that is both intoxicating and cruel, and illuminates the bittersweet transformation of the young girl who must bear the burden and blessing of its secrets too soon. Eden is a haunting, memorable novel propelled by the poetry and power of a voice that is complex, lyrical, and utterly true.
“A profoundly raw and gripping read,” (The Baltimore Sun) Olympia Vernon’s fearless and wildly original debut novel explodes on the first page and sustains a tightrope intensity until the last. Set in Pyke County, Mississippi, Eden is a raw, heartbreaking, and enlightening novel that marks the emergence of a stunning and original talent. Narrated by fourteen-year-old Maddy Dangerfield, Eden opens in the moments after Maddy has impulsively drawn a naked woman on the pages of Genesis in bright red lipstick during Sunday service. The community is scandalized, and her devout, long-suffering mother’s response to her transgression is to force her to spend weekends nursing her dying Aunt Pip, an outcast who lives on the edge of town.
From then on, Maddy must negotiate her two worlds: at the house where she lives with her hard-working, Bible-reading mother, Faye, and her father, Chevrolet—a one-armed drunk, gambler and womanizer—she is both a reluctant participant in and astute observer of the strange and confounding dynamics of her sometimes violent, sometimes tender family. (Years before, Maddy’s grandmother—her mother’s mother—chopped of Chevrolet’s arm and fed it to the pigs after he and Pip were found together in the back room as Faye entertained friends from the church—and ever since, he has been am emasculated, desperate man—drinking and gambling his wife’s money away, leaving her to clean up his mess time and again.) And then out on Commitment Road, she is caretaker to her Aunt Pip, whose only friend is her eccentric neighbor, Fat. Maddy’s time with Pip and Fat opens her eyes to the exhilaration of speaking your own mind, living your life on your own terms and without apology, and also to the cost extracted by both. She learns that there are strengths that belong to women alone, and also that there is a kind of ravaging vulnerability that is terrifying and inescapable, and uniquely female.
The world Maddy inherits is one of injustice and hypocrisy, one that requires black people work for the whites for little to no pay; that sent her Uncle Sugar to jail for raping a white woman—no questions asked—when Maddy was just a baby; that preaches Christian love and forgiveness even as its actions reflect the very opposite. But Maddy soon learns that there is something that can work to oppose those truths, and that is knowledge; having the will and the ability to look beneath the surface, to question what others take as a given. By the end of the novel, newly acquainted with mortality and her own fierce strength, Maddy comes to bear both the burden and the blessing of that knowledge.
In lush, vivid brushstrokes, Olympia Vernon conjures a world that is both intoxicating and cruel, and illuminates the bittersweet transformation of the young girl who must bear the burden and blessing of its secrets too soon. Eden is a haunting, memorable novel propelled by the poetry and power of a voice that is complex, lyrical, and utterly true.
288 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2004
28 people are currently reading
537 people want to read
About the author
Olympia Vernon
4 books10 followersOlympia Vernon grew up in a small town on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana, the fourth of seven children. She has a degree in criminal justice and received her MFA from Louisiana State University in the spring of 2002. Olympia has twice been granted the Matt Clark Memorial Scholarship and was nominated for the Robert O. Butler Award in Fiction in 2000. She is the author of A Killing in this Town, Logic and Eden, for which she won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award in 2004. In 2005 she won the Governor’s Arts Award in the Professional Artist category in Louisiana. In 2008 A Killing in This Town won the first annual Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence award.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 24, 2023
loved this book so much. olympia vernon is a genius
January 13, 2021
If you don't like vulgar books, don't bother with this book. While the book contains foul language and body imagery, this book is beautiful. It is an extremely honest and the most real coming-of-age story I have ever read. If you are not interested in real thoughts from a 14 year old, this book is not for you, but if you enjoy the real thoughts of sex and growing up, this book is truly amazing. I read it for class and had amazing discussions about it with my class. I loved it.
February 28, 2020
This book was very hard to understand ....kind of poetic but very disturbing most of the time.
Maybe I don’t mean hard to understand, just odd. Filled with a lot of violence...sexual and physical.
I guess it’s just stressing the horrible life of black people and how it was amazing that they could survive at all...Sad actually.
Maybe I don’t mean hard to understand, just odd. Filled with a lot of violence...sexual and physical.
I guess it’s just stressing the horrible life of black people and how it was amazing that they could survive at all...Sad actually.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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April 14, 2024I just finished reading this book and could not tell you what it’s about.
It’s sad, all the characters are broken and suffering. The pictures of racism and abuse in the small southern town is so vivid.
Rape, murder, anger, poverty, cancer, escapism - there’s a lot going on. I struggled to finish it, can’t rate or recommend.
It’s sad, all the characters are broken and suffering. The pictures of racism and abuse in the small southern town is so vivid.
Rape, murder, anger, poverty, cancer, escapism - there’s a lot going on. I struggled to finish it, can’t rate or recommend.
March 28, 2018
Good beach read.
April 2, 2020
Bas I call about a,dieing wonan
I really dis liked this book. It was,rude crude and extremely boring. Too much talk of bad smells and bodily discharges.
I really dis liked this book. It was,rude crude and extremely boring. Too much talk of bad smells and bodily discharges.
July 22, 2019
" I once heard that whatever God a person believed in, that god would look just like him. But something was wrong with the gods in this house. None of them looked like me."
In Olympia Vernons' debut novel, we are introduced to the life of Maddy, a young girl growing up in Pyke county Mississippi. Maddy is learning to navigate a world of poverty and scandal. A world of strict unspoken rules put in place by race and religion. Maddy as a character is growing headstrong and wise in the face of sickness and the complicated trials she faces.
This book had me captivated from the first page. Vernon writes in vivid, descriptive, and vulgar language but does it gracefully. Almost poetically. The characters develop beautifully and naturally. Each one have personalities that are deep and complex. I didn't want to turn away from their lives when the book ended.
This is certainly a book that I will be adding to my bookshelf!
""I don't know." I grew angry with her. But it was rude to walk off from a Negro in Mississippi. She would have slapped the shit out of me for leaving her there in the middle of a question."
In Olympia Vernons' debut novel, we are introduced to the life of Maddy, a young girl growing up in Pyke county Mississippi. Maddy is learning to navigate a world of poverty and scandal. A world of strict unspoken rules put in place by race and religion. Maddy as a character is growing headstrong and wise in the face of sickness and the complicated trials she faces.
This book had me captivated from the first page. Vernon writes in vivid, descriptive, and vulgar language but does it gracefully. Almost poetically. The characters develop beautifully and naturally. Each one have personalities that are deep and complex. I didn't want to turn away from their lives when the book ended.
This is certainly a book that I will be adding to my bookshelf!
""I don't know." I grew angry with her. But it was rude to walk off from a Negro in Mississippi. She would have slapped the shit out of me for leaving her there in the middle of a question."
June 5, 2008
This story was told in the voice of a fourteen year old girl raised in the rural south of Mississippi. Olympia Vernon has created a story where you can feel and see what is happening. I was lost for words while reading this story. Each chapter just flows and its hard to put this book down because you have to know what is going to happen next.
Maddy is the daughter of a mother who is a maid for just about every white man in town...and her father is just a shadow in his own house because he's known for being a whore and a gambler. When Maddy's aunt becomes sick and she is sent to take care of her..readers actually get a front row seat into a world much different than the one now. One of the characters that really stood out to me is Big Mama and Fat.
This is one story that will stay on your mind long after you have read the last page. I will definitely be reading more from this talented and creative author!
Maddy is the daughter of a mother who is a maid for just about every white man in town...and her father is just a shadow in his own house because he's known for being a whore and a gambler. When Maddy's aunt becomes sick and she is sent to take care of her..readers actually get a front row seat into a world much different than the one now. One of the characters that really stood out to me is Big Mama and Fat.
This is one story that will stay on your mind long after you have read the last page. I will definitely be reading more from this talented and creative author!
July 3, 2013
A quick review:
I didn't expect Eden to be quite as symbolic, poetic, or as metaphorical as it was. I had a difficult time grasping certain images, and felt as though I needed to read very closely to properly interpret certain moments in the plot--much like when reading poetry. In some ways, this was off-putting; I generally do not want to do that much interpretation when I am reading a novel.
At the same time,I respect Vernon as a writer, and my opinion of this book does not reflect the fact that she is a good writer, she certainly has a handle on the craft. And as I read Eden, I knew there were some people who would be deeply moved by the novel, and the Goodreads ratings reflect this. I, however, just fell short.
I didn't expect Eden to be quite as symbolic, poetic, or as metaphorical as it was. I had a difficult time grasping certain images, and felt as though I needed to read very closely to properly interpret certain moments in the plot--much like when reading poetry. In some ways, this was off-putting; I generally do not want to do that much interpretation when I am reading a novel.
At the same time,I respect Vernon as a writer, and my opinion of this book does not reflect the fact that she is a good writer, she certainly has a handle on the craft. And as I read Eden, I knew there were some people who would be deeply moved by the novel, and the Goodreads ratings reflect this. I, however, just fell short.
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March 25, 2009Yeah! and another one bites the dust. this is a no go. one reviewer on the jacket claims the author writes in lyrical poetry? what?! No-no! more like riddles, sometimes i have no idea what the author is trying to say. Just plain frustrating...Next!
July 15, 2009
Although I found the writing style annoying at times, I did ultimately find the book to be moving (at least, based on fact that I was wiping tears away as I read the last couple chapters - and on a plane, too - I hate it when that happens).
August 26, 2011
I bought this book at Powell's for a dollar. If I hadn't bought it, I wouldn't have bothered finishing it. The plot was horrible, and I couldn't relate to any part of it. The writing was not good either.
Want to read
June 14, 2016#
NC
Own in paperback.
FS: "One Sunday morning, during Bible study, I took a tube of Aunt Pip's fire-engine-red lipstick and drew a naked lady over the first page of Genesis."
LS: "I was lost in the land of Eden."
NC
Own in paperback.
FS: "One Sunday morning, during Bible study, I took a tube of Aunt Pip's fire-engine-red lipstick and drew a naked lady over the first page of Genesis."
LS: "I was lost in the land of Eden."
January 10, 2008
This is still regarded as the worst book ever selected in my book club and we've been a group for almost 3 years.
April 5, 2008
I love this book! 'nuff said.
May 25, 2008
Olympia Vernon is one of the best writers of my generation...Every word, every sentence is line by line poetry...She does her job of writing very well.
March 13, 2012
It was extremly vulgar, I was constantly having to put it down, I would never reccomend it or read it again.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews