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The New Valley: Novellas
The three linked novellas that comprise Josh Weil’s masterful debut bring us into America’s remote and often unforgiving backcountry, and delicately open up the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.
Set in the hardscrabble hill country between the Virginias, The New Valley is populated by characters striving to forge new lives in the absence of those they have loved. Told in three varied and distinct voices— from a soft-spoken middle-aged beef farmer struggling to hold himself together after his dad’s death; to a health-obsessed single father desperate to control his reckless, overweight daughter; to a mildly retarded man who falls in love with a married woman intent on using him in a scheme that will wound them both—each novella is a vivid, stand-alone examination of Weil’s uniquely romanticized relationships. As the men battle against grief and solitude, their heartache leads them all to commit acts that will bring both ruin and salvation.
Written with a deeply American tone, focused attention to story, and veneration for character, The New Valley is a tender exploration of survival, isolation, and the deep, consuming ache for human connection.
Set in the hardscrabble hill country between the Virginias, The New Valley is populated by characters striving to forge new lives in the absence of those they have loved. Told in three varied and distinct voices— from a soft-spoken middle-aged beef farmer struggling to hold himself together after his dad’s death; to a health-obsessed single father desperate to control his reckless, overweight daughter; to a mildly retarded man who falls in love with a married woman intent on using him in a scheme that will wound them both—each novella is a vivid, stand-alone examination of Weil’s uniquely romanticized relationships. As the men battle against grief and solitude, their heartache leads them all to commit acts that will bring both ruin and salvation.
Written with a deeply American tone, focused attention to story, and veneration for character, The New Valley is a tender exploration of survival, isolation, and the deep, consuming ache for human connection.
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 3, 2009
23 people are currently reading
411 people want to read
About the author
Josh Weil
9 books125 followersJosh Weil is the author of the novels What Came West and The Great Glass Sea, the novella collection The New Valley, and the story collection The Age of Perpetual Light.
Published internationally, his books have been New York Times Editor's Choices and selected for the Powell's Indiespensible program. They have been awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the California Book Award, the Library of Virginia's Literary Award, the GrubStreet National Book Prize, the New Writers Award from the GLCA, and a “5 Under 35” Award from the National Book Foundation. Weil's short fiction has garnered a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Granta, Esquire, Tin House and One Story, among others. He has written non-fiction for The New York Times, Orion, Poets & Writers and The Sun. A recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Merrill House, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, he has been the Picador Guest Professor at the University of Leipzig, the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, the Distinguished Lecturer at The Sozopol Writing Seminars, and the visiting writer at the University of California Irvine and Bowling Green State University. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, The New School, Brooklyn College, Sierra Nevada College, and Bennington College, as well as at numberous conferences, including the Community of Writers and Bread Loaf.
Published internationally, his books have been New York Times Editor's Choices and selected for the Powell's Indiespensible program. They have been awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the California Book Award, the Library of Virginia's Literary Award, the GrubStreet National Book Prize, the New Writers Award from the GLCA, and a “5 Under 35” Award from the National Book Foundation. Weil's short fiction has garnered a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Granta, Esquire, Tin House and One Story, among others. He has written non-fiction for The New York Times, Orion, Poets & Writers and The Sun. A recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Merrill House, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, he has been the Picador Guest Professor at the University of Leipzig, the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, the Distinguished Lecturer at The Sozopol Writing Seminars, and the visiting writer at the University of California Irvine and Bowling Green State University. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, The New School, Brooklyn College, Sierra Nevada College, and Bennington College, as well as at numberous conferences, including the Community of Writers and Bread Loaf.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
July 1, 2009
Exquisite prose. Heartbreakingly real characters. A book that reminds me what I love about reading: immersion in another world as tangible as my own. And if you have a chance to meet the friendly, down-to-earth, fascinating, and sincere Josh Weil you're sure to come away feeling inspired.
Read an Interview With Writer Josh Weil: http://wordswithwriters.com/2010/04/1...
Read an Interview With Writer Josh Weil: http://wordswithwriters.com/2010/04/1...
June 26, 2010
Wow, what a collection of novellas. The first one, "Ridge Weather" is one of the best pieces of fiction I have read in a very long time, period. The second novella, "Stillman Wing" is good, but I didn't love it as much as the first. Weil does some really interesting things with time in this piece - shifting to the past and into the future in a matter of a couple of sentences - so it's worth reading for that. The final novella, "Sarverville Remains" was a challenge to get into - it's a first person story with a mildly mentally handicapped narrator and he's writing a series of letters. I know that may sound a bit hokey or old fashioned, but trust me, Weil pulls it off beautifully. It's a challenge because of the diction/sytanx, but after a few pages you get used to it. It's interesting to be in the mind of someone like that, and as we go through the events in the story with him, we are confused as he is confused. Like I said, Weil pulls it off.
I can't wait to see what this great young writer does next.
I can't wait to see what this great young writer does next.
July 16, 2009
As with all the best short fiction, the three novellas that constitute The New Valley carry a weight disproportionate to their length. These stories give a voice to the lonely and disconnected that would otherwise remain mute among the force of change that moves the people and environment around them. In reading it, I more than once caught myself exhaling a long-held breath after a moment of tension or sadness had completely removed me from my immediate surroundings and into the hollow, ramshackle world of Osby, Stillman, and Geoffrey. This is a great book that at once leaves you satisfied and craving more from a very promising author.
August 8, 2021
3.5 rounded up.
July 21, 2009
Weil's collection of novellas is a lot of things: a book brimming with beautiful prose, a work that understands the vast importance of setting (the Virginia land that shapes the characters living in them), and features characters that live and breathe and stay in your heart long after their stories have ended on the page. But for me, it is primarily a book about heartbreaking loneliness and isolation, and Weil captures that emotion more intensely than perhaps any book I've read.
My only quibble is with the middle novella, Stillman Wing. I am as invested in Stillman and as moved by his situation as I am with the two main characters of the other novellas. But the way that Weil has chosen to purposefully unmoor us in time prevented me from really settling into Stillman's world. But still, this debut work for Weil is a wonder. I highly recommend it!
My only quibble is with the middle novella, Stillman Wing. I am as invested in Stillman and as moved by his situation as I am with the two main characters of the other novellas. But the way that Weil has chosen to purposefully unmoor us in time prevented me from really settling into Stillman's world. But still, this debut work for Weil is a wonder. I highly recommend it!
June 28, 2012
The first novella in collection, "Ridge Weather," is quite moving, superbly written. About a beef cattle rancher trying to deal with suicide of his father while also, among other things, caring for a stricken steer. Pitch-perfect control. Neither depressing nor sentimental; just achingly honest, with a number of quiet but captivating plot twists. Weil is a true talent.
****
Ok, finished, except for last piece, Sarverville Remains, which I quit 3 pgs in because I didn't have patience for the voice, that of mentally disabled young man, I think, didn't stick around long enough to find out. Not a principled objection, just wasn't in mood for it, a month ago or now. That kind of thing either works brilliantly or comes off as gimmicky for me. But the first piece, Ridge Weather, is one of finest contemporary works I've read in long time. It alone is worth price of book.
2nd piece,STillman Wing, about an aging mechanic trying to restore an old tractor and improve his wild daughter's life with alternative therapies, is good but a clear step below Ridge Weather. The pieces fit together too neatly for my taste, lacks the sense of mystery and surprise of first one.
Read this with my girlfriend, a native of same locale as Weil's stories, and though she liked them, she thought that in the end his vision of life it a bit too hopeful for a genuine Appalachian writer, and she's read a lot, fiction, poetry and nonfiction, about the area. I don't have anywhere near her experience with the literature of the culture, but can see her point. Just an observation, not a criticism, she says. Make what you what you will of it.
But again, the first novella is close to a masterpiece.
****
Ok, finished, except for last piece, Sarverville Remains, which I quit 3 pgs in because I didn't have patience for the voice, that of mentally disabled young man, I think, didn't stick around long enough to find out. Not a principled objection, just wasn't in mood for it, a month ago or now. That kind of thing either works brilliantly or comes off as gimmicky for me. But the first piece, Ridge Weather, is one of finest contemporary works I've read in long time. It alone is worth price of book.
2nd piece,STillman Wing, about an aging mechanic trying to restore an old tractor and improve his wild daughter's life with alternative therapies, is good but a clear step below Ridge Weather. The pieces fit together too neatly for my taste, lacks the sense of mystery and surprise of first one.
Read this with my girlfriend, a native of same locale as Weil's stories, and though she liked them, she thought that in the end his vision of life it a bit too hopeful for a genuine Appalachian writer, and she's read a lot, fiction, poetry and nonfiction, about the area. I don't have anywhere near her experience with the literature of the culture, but can see her point. Just an observation, not a criticism, she says. Make what you what you will of it.
But again, the first novella is close to a masterpiece.
March 9, 2010
Of the three novellas that comprise The New Valley, the third is the longest and the best; the first is the shortest and the weakest. In fact, I'd argue that this first novella, Ridge Weather, is not even a novella but really just a long story. Weil introduces a few supporting characters along the way, but the shift in perspective is too much for such a short piece, and when those characters never factor in again it makes their appearance seem like an obligatory tactic to reveal something about the main character and to give the piece breadth. Anyway, the second novella is longer, bigger, and better than the first; it, like "Brokeback Mountain," takes place over many years (though you wouldn't know it here) during which an old man restores an old tractor in his basement. The final novella, Saverville Remains, though, is by far the most rewarding read. Built of ostensible letters to an imprisoned man by a slow-witted thirtysomething (recalling Amy Hempel's "Tumble Home"), it has a unique voice and pathos that the other two novellas, though strong, lack. The dimwitted manchild narrator is nothing new, and it seems every author since Faulkner who utilizes him imparts on him savant-like qualities such as an unrealistic memory for dialogue, explaining his ability to quote long conversations verbatim and allowing the epistolary narrative to go beyond the scope of a series of normal letters. Still, it works here, and this novella alone makes The New Valley worth reading.
May 19, 2016
I picked up this book as a possible for using in my senior seminar paper. I chose not to use it because it's a series of novellas as opposed to short stories, and "short story cycle" was the requirement. However, this fits neatly alongside the books I did choose: Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven and Gardner's Someone to Crawl Back To. Rural people facing crushing loneliness, emotionally and mentally stunted, sexually deviant or disappointed, etc.
The landscape is very Steinbeck. The characters echo Faulkner and O'Connor. The style is classic and fresh at the same time. I was highlighting similes all the way through. Well done, Mr. Weil. Very well done.
The landscape is very Steinbeck. The characters echo Faulkner and O'Connor. The style is classic and fresh at the same time. I was highlighting similes all the way through. Well done, Mr. Weil. Very well done.
August 10, 2016
These three novellas explore the paradox of the value of loneliness and the deep hunger for connection. Weil depicts the interior life of each of three characters who would probably go unnoticed in the ordinary run of things. I found them engaging, moving, and thought-provoking.
Re-read the first of these three, "Ridge Weather". Beautifully constructed, no waste of words---a style I always prefer. Life stripped to the bare essentials. One character chooses life. One character chooses death.
The story is tender, moving, and resonant of the deepest things we know.
Re-read the first of these three, "Ridge Weather". Beautifully constructed, no waste of words---a style I always prefer. Life stripped to the bare essentials. One character chooses life. One character chooses death.
The story is tender, moving, and resonant of the deepest things we know.
July 11, 2011
I discovered Josh Weil's The New Valley last year. It is a collection of three character driven novellas. Each portrays an Appalachian man who is estranged from the world. While the reasons for their isolation differ, all three protagonists have experienced heartbreak, which Weil told me was a key force while he was writing the book. I interviewed him for my blog, The Revivalist: Word from the Appalachian South--http://therevivalist.info/josh-weil/
April 23, 2009
Impressive Debut fiction from an upcoming young author. Set in the Appalachian hill country, The New Valley is composed of three novellas centering on three lost and wounded men. Certainly not an "easy" book, but these men will stay with the reader for a long time.
September 28, 2009
This is a fantastic collection of three novellas, set in a pocket of southwestern Virginia. The first and third novellas are especially good.
Everybody go read this. Seriously.
Everybody go read this. Seriously.
July 7, 2014
The valleys of Virginia are not vastly populated. And yet they are inhabited by the complex and simple people of Josh Weil’s first book “The New Valley.” The debut contains three novellas. Each utterly distinct from the others despite the fact that they share the same locale.
In the fist novella, a man, Osby, has just lost his father. For years the two of them lived and worked side by side on their farm. They bred cattle and lived a controllable if not entirely contented life as bachelors in a house too large for just two of them. Osby finds himself marooned by the grief his doesn’t know how to express or even own. Left with no one to care for besides his cows, Osby attempts to navigate the new waters he finds himself adrift upon. Innocent and reluctant to open himself up to the world, he approaches everything with good intentions and is bewildered by his inability to succeed.
Stillman Wing is the main character in Weil’s second novella. At seventy he is forced into retirement and in a rare break from his customary caution, Stillman makes away with an ancient Deutz from his former employer’s yard of machines, planning on fixing the tractor up like new. Stillman lives with his obese daughter Caroline. Her tremendous weight plagues Stillman and he begs her to abide by his own fastidious approaches to physical health. Caroline continually rebuffs him. He has raised her on his own since she was a toddler and his love for her is evident and immense. But his devotion to her is incapable of stabilizing his impetuous daughter.
Two elements of this novella are particularly intriguing. The manner in which Weil deals with time is remarkable in Stillman Wing. Within the space of a single paragraph inside Stillman’s head, a whole year has gone by. The transition is absolutely fluid and once one tunes into his strategy, Weil’s approach to the seasonal cycles is both striking and delightful. Time resides at the axis of the story, and the author’s unique approach to its unfurling makes its importance all the more conspicuous.
Secondly, there are wonderful illustrations splitting up the text in this narrative. The drawings are intricate and surprising. They complement the story beautifully, adding another element of mystery.
Weil introduces the reader to the last of the Sarvers in the final, longest novella. All of Weil’s stories do a dance on the heartstrings, but “Sarverville Remains’ is particularly affecting. Weil strikes an entirely different tone in this story. Geoffrey Sarver is the first-person narrator of this dark narrative. He is writing to someone and it becomes evident through his prose that he is mentally impaired to a minor degree. At the age of thirty Geoffrey spends his time with high school boys who are looking for sex and trouble. The company he keeps leads him to his first love affair, an event that disrupts the placidity of the life he had made for himself.
Weil’s ability to enter the minds of the characters on his pages is remarkable. The variations in their lives and personalities are complex and yet ring with a similar searching tremor. None of them are resigned. All three male protagonists strive toward something beyond what they have known; their largest obstacle is only that they are unsure of what lies beyond their immediate existence.
Weil’s debut has rare depths and penetrates into minds and communities that are rarely explored. A literary trend toward the exploration of those outside the spotlight is emerging, a move that Weil proves to be compelling and profitable.
In the fist novella, a man, Osby, has just lost his father. For years the two of them lived and worked side by side on their farm. They bred cattle and lived a controllable if not entirely contented life as bachelors in a house too large for just two of them. Osby finds himself marooned by the grief his doesn’t know how to express or even own. Left with no one to care for besides his cows, Osby attempts to navigate the new waters he finds himself adrift upon. Innocent and reluctant to open himself up to the world, he approaches everything with good intentions and is bewildered by his inability to succeed.
Stillman Wing is the main character in Weil’s second novella. At seventy he is forced into retirement and in a rare break from his customary caution, Stillman makes away with an ancient Deutz from his former employer’s yard of machines, planning on fixing the tractor up like new. Stillman lives with his obese daughter Caroline. Her tremendous weight plagues Stillman and he begs her to abide by his own fastidious approaches to physical health. Caroline continually rebuffs him. He has raised her on his own since she was a toddler and his love for her is evident and immense. But his devotion to her is incapable of stabilizing his impetuous daughter.
Two elements of this novella are particularly intriguing. The manner in which Weil deals with time is remarkable in Stillman Wing. Within the space of a single paragraph inside Stillman’s head, a whole year has gone by. The transition is absolutely fluid and once one tunes into his strategy, Weil’s approach to the seasonal cycles is both striking and delightful. Time resides at the axis of the story, and the author’s unique approach to its unfurling makes its importance all the more conspicuous.
Secondly, there are wonderful illustrations splitting up the text in this narrative. The drawings are intricate and surprising. They complement the story beautifully, adding another element of mystery.
Weil introduces the reader to the last of the Sarvers in the final, longest novella. All of Weil’s stories do a dance on the heartstrings, but “Sarverville Remains’ is particularly affecting. Weil strikes an entirely different tone in this story. Geoffrey Sarver is the first-person narrator of this dark narrative. He is writing to someone and it becomes evident through his prose that he is mentally impaired to a minor degree. At the age of thirty Geoffrey spends his time with high school boys who are looking for sex and trouble. The company he keeps leads him to his first love affair, an event that disrupts the placidity of the life he had made for himself.
Weil’s ability to enter the minds of the characters on his pages is remarkable. The variations in their lives and personalities are complex and yet ring with a similar searching tremor. None of them are resigned. All three male protagonists strive toward something beyond what they have known; their largest obstacle is only that they are unsure of what lies beyond their immediate existence.
Weil’s debut has rare depths and penetrates into minds and communities that are rarely explored. A literary trend toward the exploration of those outside the spotlight is emerging, a move that Weil proves to be compelling and profitable.
April 14, 2011
This collection of three novellas takes as its setting the tree-choked chute of land along the New River that cuts West Virginia from its parent state, and each of the novellas opens the door a little wider on the characters peopling this valley. The first and strongest novella, "Ridge Weather," works against the other two for its reliance on simple narrative and the use of setting to evoke the deep, soul-aching loneliness of its protagonist, Osby Caudill, whose life-long work raising cattle becomes his only outlet for his grief when his father commits suicide. The language of work shapes the second novella, the much more tightly cyclical "Stillman Wing," in which the protagonist (the Stillman from the title), a lifelong hypochondriac and father to a daughter who lives her life in defiance of every value her father tries to instill in her, spends several years slowly and methodically rebuilding a Deutz tractor while the rest of the townspeople begin to shun the residents of a hippy commune whose children are slowly and mysterious dying off. The longest of the novellas, "Sarverville Remains," has received the highest praise from other reviewers for its voice and its pathos. The story takes the form of a confessional letter written by a mentally handicapped young man to the husband of a hard-bitten woman with whom the protagonist has fallen blithely in love. As the story winds to a close, Weil builds momentum by infusing the narrative with elements from the crime-fiction genre: a case of double-identity and financial exploitation in which the protagonist plays the role of the patsy. While Weil skirts the risk of melodrama by affording his protagonist the slow realization that he's been duped, there's something discomfitting about the way he's exploited a mentally handicapped individual for the sake of narrative tension. Still, the novella is affecting, perhaps in spite of the ethical risks Weil has taken, and it serves to reinforce the strong sense of loneliness Weil created more strongly in the other narratives, in which his protagonists make and reckon with the choices they've made; the circumscribed lives they lead turn out to be as silent, and as formidable, as the forested hills surrounding them.
If I've done anything to peak your interest in reading "The New Valley," then it's definitely worth your time to check out Anthony Doerr's review of Weil's book in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/boo...
If I've done anything to peak your interest in reading "The New Valley," then it's definitely worth your time to check out Anthony Doerr's review of Weil's book in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/boo...
November 10, 2010
After the first of the three novellas, I had to put this down for awhile because it made me so sad, and that wasn't what I needed at the moment. I picked it back up, and while it didn't get objectively less sad, it was really good. Josh Weil's brain must be a complex place, especially if he's the one who drew the tractor/human anatomy schematics in the space breaks of the second novella. The third novella should be as or more sad than the first two, but I felt relief when I came to it. It just didn't seem as sad to me, maybe because the narrator didn't completely register the sadness in his life the way the first two did.
January 14, 2015
In Weil's rural West Virginia, I see and hear the same people I grew up with in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California. His characters, like my old friends and neighbors, are living lives that might seem simple on the surface--farmers, clerks, shop owners--but they have complicated hearts. I wish I knew a better way to put this, but it's the trick the author pulls off so effectively: penetrating the loneliness, getting inside the hurt, and showing us that these quiet men and women have thunder and lightning in their chests. I'm looking forward to reading The Great Glass Sea.
June 20, 2010
A beautifully written set of three novellas set in rural Southwestern Virginia. Weil transports the reader to the hauntingly isolated landscape and in three stories, introduces you to equally isolated characters who live there.The feeling of lonliness is palpable. I met the author at the Southern Festival of Books last fall and heard him read from one of the novellas. For years, his family has had a cabin tucked away in these mountains he describes so well. He goes there to write...in isolation.
December 28, 2014
Three compelling novellas written in gorgeous, detail-laden, almost old-fashioned prose. Although the novellas are all set in the small, economically-depressed towns of Virginia and West Virginia, I often felt as if I were reading about the people from my small town in Northern New York--I consider this a testament to Weil's writing. There's something familiar (and heartbreaking) about these characters and their struggles to overcome loneliness in an unforgiving environment. I loved every word. I'll read more by Josh Weil in the future, without question.
August 2, 2009
Josh Weil draws you into his novellas, soulfully connecting you to each of his main characters with an easy manner ~ describing their lives in West Virginia in a beautifully haunting way. He takes these ordinary, outwardly simple lives and exposes the deep and extreme emotions hidden in each man's proud, guarded ways. Truly memorable writing ... an author I will be watching as I expect there's a lot more where this came from!
August 3, 2009
At a Skylight Books reading a couple of months ago, Josh Weil read from the third novella in this collection of three, and I was pretty blown away. "Sarverville Remains" is chilling, poignant, and told in a well-executed, effective form of West Virginian dialect. The other two novellas are sadly not as good. "Ridge Weather" establishes the setting of the collection well and has its touching moments, but "Stillman Wing" didn't do it for me at all.
August 11, 2009
This collection of three novellas is terrific. They're all set in Southwestern Virginia and explore that landscape and the people (which seemed familiar, since I had just read Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, which is set nearby). Of the three, the most impressive is "Sarverville Remains," which is told from the point of view of a mildly retarded man who struggles to fit into society--one of my favorite subjects. Highly recommended.
September 3, 2014
This is three novellas all set in west virginia. The central character of each longs for human contact of some kind.
Osby's father committed suicide and leaves osby reevaluating his lot in life. Stillman has a grown daughter living with him, but fails to connect with her emotionally. And geoff is a manchild that cannot understand the betrayal he has suffered at the hands of a woman he believes to be his friend.
Well written and interesting characters.
Osby's father committed suicide and leaves osby reevaluating his lot in life. Stillman has a grown daughter living with him, but fails to connect with her emotionally. And geoff is a manchild that cannot understand the betrayal he has suffered at the hands of a woman he believes to be his friend.
Well written and interesting characters.
December 27, 2010
Excellent set of 3 novellas. Loosely tied together by time and place. I thought each was my favorite as I read them. They do all have a similar feel--lonely men who don't fit in and don't understand those around them. Curiou to read more of this author's work--have no idea if that theme is his thing.
I sure wouldn't want to live in the Swain Valley, though perhaps the author feels everyone feels that way? Meaning lonely and confused. Would be a great book club book.
I sure wouldn't want to live in the Swain Valley, though perhaps the author feels everyone feels that way? Meaning lonely and confused. Would be a great book club book.
June 10, 2009
A very nice collection of novellas. Each story is a rendering of the best parts of the quiet, weathered, common people who have inhabited humblest Appalachia for generations. The beauty of the writing is Weil's respect for his characters and fondness for the land while maintaining a dogged dedication to accurately portraying the coarseness of both.
July 1, 2012
There are three novellas here, the first and last of which were so good that I knew immediately after putting the book down that 1) I was going to dig this up on abebooks and get the hardback first edition and 2) I was going to read everything Josh Weil wrote again forever.
I could summarize plotty stuff for you, but really, shouldn't the above be enough. Don't be a jerk. Go read this book.
I could summarize plotty stuff for you, but really, shouldn't the above be enough. Don't be a jerk. Go read this book.
March 10, 2014
This isn't a book that transcends time and place, and it doesn't need to be. This is a book to convey a few stories of the sort of people who are often maligned, idealized, or ignored. It transcends stereotypes and gets to many universal issues of humanity, while remaining true to the culture, setting, and characters it represents. One I will keep and read again.
December 23, 2018
My grandfathers, father and brother are a reticent bunch. They don't say much, but I know they have a lot going on underneath. Glad I read this book of 3 novellas about 3 very different, but very silent men. Feel like I know the men in my family better for having read it. Extremely well written and beautiful in a bittersweet way.
July 26, 2009
Weil's reader can practically smell and feel what his characters do. From the smell of a pasture, the heartache, insecurities and joy. His novellas collected in _The New Valley_ are set in his native Virginia.
September 27, 2009
A collection of three connected novellas with compelling (if somewhat bleak) characters, evocative setting and unlikely plots that keep you reading. Some of the best new writing I've seen in a very long time. I will definitely want to see more from this writer.
March 3, 2010
From Recommended Books and Writers in the Winter 09/10 issue of Ploughshares. Recommended by Sherrie Flick.
Read a full review here: http://www.pshares.org/issues/article...
Read a full review here: http://www.pshares.org/issues/article...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews