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The Marrowbone Marble Company: A Lyrical Masterwork of Southern Fiction Set in Post-WWII America
1941. Loyal Ledford works the swing shift at the Mann Glass factory in Huntington, West Virginia. He courts Rachel, the boss’s daughter, a company nurse with coal black hair. But when Pearl Harbor is attacked, Ledford, like so many young men of his time, sets his life on a new course.
Upon his return from service in the war, Ledford starts a family with Rachel but chafes under the authority at Mann Glass. He is a lost man, disconnected from the present and haunted by his violent past, until he meets his cousins the Bonecutter brothers. Their land, mysterious, elemental Marrowbone Cut, calls to Ledford, and it is there that The Marrowbone Marble Company is slowly forged. Over the next two decades, the factory grounds become a vanguard of the civil rights movement and a home for those intent on change. Such a home inevitably invites trouble, and Ledford must fight for his family.
Returning to the West Virginia territory of his critically acclaimed novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, Glenn Taylor recounts the transformative journey of a man and his community.
Upon his return from service in the war, Ledford starts a family with Rachel but chafes under the authority at Mann Glass. He is a lost man, disconnected from the present and haunted by his violent past, until he meets his cousins the Bonecutter brothers. Their land, mysterious, elemental Marrowbone Cut, calls to Ledford, and it is there that The Marrowbone Marble Company is slowly forged. Over the next two decades, the factory grounds become a vanguard of the civil rights movement and a home for those intent on change. Such a home inevitably invites trouble, and Ledford must fight for his family.
Returning to the West Virginia territory of his critically acclaimed novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, Glenn Taylor recounts the transformative journey of a man and his community.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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857 people want to read
About the author
Glenn Taylor
3 books30 followersGlenn Taylor is the author of the novels A Hanging at Cinder Bottom, The Marrowbone Marble Company and The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, GQ, and Electric Literature, among others. He resided for a time in Austin, Texas, and after that, Chicago. He earned an MFA from Texas State University. Glenn was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia, and he now lives with his wife and three sons in Morgantown, where he teaches in the MFA Program at West Virginia University.
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September 21, 2023
M. Glenn Taylor - image from his site
Taylor’s first novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was a revelation. Written with the tonal sensitivity of a poet, it portrayed harsh reality in Appalachia with literary flair. Taylor returns to this turf with The Marrowbone Marble Company. It tells the tale of Lloyd Ledford, a working class West Virginian, shaped by his upbringing and the horrors he experienced in World War II. As he grows we travel through the mid-20th century in Appalachia. He goes from working in a glass factory to owning a factory that produces marbles. As the nation experiences the boom of the post-war period it also experiences change in race relations. The Marrowbone Marble Factory forms the core of a community that Lloyd and his recruits put together, a place where white and black live, work and worship together. Of course establishing such a community would be expected to draw the ire of those not comfortable with desegregation. Trouble ensues. The story is rich with imagery and interesting characters, a pair of mountain-man brothers, a clan war, a Chicago gangster war buddy, a wise professor-preacher, a gifted young boxer, a good man struggling with his internal demons. It is an ambitious novel, with a sense of history and a strong sense of place. Darkness and light do battle here, internally and externally. Yet…
Because there are many characters in this ensemble cast, I felt that Taylor stretched his tale a bit too thinly. With a larger book he might have been able to develop several of his people more fully. Or perhaps by focusing on a lesser number, the core characters might have been better illuminated in the same space. I felt at times that his characters were tools in his shed, useful for taking care of particular bits of story-telling maintenance, but ultimately disposable. His first novel showed that he can do character very well and this novel reinforces the fact that he has a very fecund imagination, a well of affection for and appreciation of his chosen geographic turf, and a capacity for beautiful writing. I am already eager to see what he produces next. The Marrowbone Marble Company is an intriguing read, but it seems to me a stepping stone to future, greater work.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to Taylor’s personal, Twitter and Instagram pages
August 9, 2022
Writing a review of M. Glenn Taylor's The Marrowbone Marble Company has been difficult for me - not because of the book itself but because determining where it fits in my reading experience and my life experience has been an elusive process. Covering the period from October, 1941 to January, 1969 - with a ten-year gap from 1953 to 1963 - the book could be "about" any of several things. The protagonist, Loyal Ledford, tends the furnace on the swing shift in a West Virginia glass factory until he enlists in the Army immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. His experiences and the people he serves with in the Pacific are things that will continue to influence him long after the end of the war. On his return to West Virginia, he resumes his job at the glass factory, marries, and begins to raise a family. Unhappy with the hierarchy under which he works at the glass factory, he soon leaves to not only build a marble factory but a new community as well, based on what each member is able to contribute.
In June of 1963 I was a few weeks shy of my eighth birthday. In January of 1969 I was a semester and a summer - one that included the first moon landing and Woodstock - away from high school. My age and living in southern New Mexico during that time period meant that I didn't understand much about what little exposure I had via the evening news to the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement, so reading about how a community in West Virginia experienced that time gave me a very different perspective on it. While reading the book, I fell into thinking that it was about the Civil Rights Movement but in the weeks since I turned the last page, the story has risen into my conscious thought on numerous occasions and I've come to realize that the point of the story is much more fundamental. It's about doing what's right and about learning that knowing what's right isn't always as easy as it should be. Loyal Ledford learns through hard lessons that what's right for one isn't always right for another and that subsuming one's own "right" to that of another or of a group can lead to bitter or disastrous results. Ultimately he learns that doing the right thing always involves a personal choice and that making that choice won't necessarily lead to the best results.
Taylor writes in such a way that you feel the protagonist's mood and frame of mind through the "voice" of the story. He develops his characters so well that if you were dropped into the Marrowbone community, you would know everyone there by sight. I enjoyed this book immensely and know that it will be with me for quite some time.
In June of 1963 I was a few weeks shy of my eighth birthday. In January of 1969 I was a semester and a summer - one that included the first moon landing and Woodstock - away from high school. My age and living in southern New Mexico during that time period meant that I didn't understand much about what little exposure I had via the evening news to the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement, so reading about how a community in West Virginia experienced that time gave me a very different perspective on it. While reading the book, I fell into thinking that it was about the Civil Rights Movement but in the weeks since I turned the last page, the story has risen into my conscious thought on numerous occasions and I've come to realize that the point of the story is much more fundamental. It's about doing what's right and about learning that knowing what's right isn't always as easy as it should be. Loyal Ledford learns through hard lessons that what's right for one isn't always right for another and that subsuming one's own "right" to that of another or of a group can lead to bitter or disastrous results. Ultimately he learns that doing the right thing always involves a personal choice and that making that choice won't necessarily lead to the best results.
Taylor writes in such a way that you feel the protagonist's mood and frame of mind through the "voice" of the story. He develops his characters so well that if you were dropped into the Marrowbone community, you would know everyone there by sight. I enjoyed this book immensely and know that it will be with me for quite some time.
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June 21, 2010Joe says:
Just finished this one last night and I'm still trying to figure out what to say about it. First: Read it. It's so good. So freaking good! Loyal Ledford returns from fighting in the Pacific in World War II and doesn't see the world the same way he used to, and definitely not the way folks in West Virigina see things. Ledford sets about creating a place where black and white live and work together... something like a utopia, built around a marble factory. I'm not saying enough about why it's so good. The writing: compelling. Tight. Real. The characters: unforgettable. Real. Happy and sad and tragic and heartbreaking. It's like real-life, only better because it's so well-written.
Just finished this one last night and I'm still trying to figure out what to say about it. First: Read it. It's so good. So freaking good! Loyal Ledford returns from fighting in the Pacific in World War II and doesn't see the world the same way he used to, and definitely not the way folks in West Virigina see things. Ledford sets about creating a place where black and white live and work together... something like a utopia, built around a marble factory. I'm not saying enough about why it's so good. The writing: compelling. Tight. Real. The characters: unforgettable. Real. Happy and sad and tragic and heartbreaking. It's like real-life, only better because it's so well-written.
February 22, 2011
I admire the scope of this tough, ambitious book more than I ultimately enjoyed it. Early on, Taylor convinced me that this was going to be a character-driven book. But as the cast grew and the characterizations diminished, I ceased to inhabit it fully. The essential ingredient--individual portrayal--blurs into the larger themes of racial unrest within the genesis of the Civil Rights Movement. People became mere sketches. Except for the main protagonist, Loyal Ledford, the cast was populated by archetypes and one-dimensional figures. The author has a talent for earthy, gritty prose and his rendering of place is evocative. The soil and air of Marrowbone, West Virginia gets in your pores. But about one-quarter way through the book, it starts to meander, sag, and make its high points with platitudes.
Loyal Ledford was orphaned as a young boy in 1935 by a reckless, drunk father. He lingers in Huntington, West Virginia, tending the furnace at night at The Mann Glass factory and squires the boss's daughter, Rachel, a company nurse. During the day, he goes to the local college. But he suffers from ennui and abruptly enlists as a serviceman in World War II. He returns after the war a haunted man from the horrors he has witnessed and the things he has done in the name of war. He is reemployed at Mann Glass, this time as a supervisor; marries Rachel; and starts a family. He befriends a black employee, Mack Wells, who has been subjected to ignorant prejudice. At night, Ledford is infected by abstract dreams that carry uncertain messages, which seem to be juxtapositions of past and future. He turns to whiskey for solace, which gradually alienates him from his home life.
Ledford is thoroughly disgusted by racial prejudice at the workplace and in the county. He leaves Mann Glass and enlists the help of his distant relatives, The Bonecutter Brothers, in order to start up The Marrowbone Marble Company, an act inspired by his dreams. He persuades Mack to leave and come with him on this new venture. Loyal wants to do more than open a marble company. He desires to build a community that is based on kinship between black and white, a town that is built on integrity and the rights of human beings of all persuasions. One brick, one stone at a time, this town will grow to represent partnership and community between all ethnicities and colors.
He seeks out a scholar, Reverend Don Staples, who becomes his mentor in all things from philosophy to religion to basic human relationships. Staples is a gentle Christian, a thoughtful theologian, not a fire and brimstone preacher. Ledford quits drinking and reestablishes his role as husband and father. He is determined to put his demons at rest and forge a meaningful future at Marrowbone Cut. However, he also maintains a friendship with a fellow serviceman, Chicagoan Erm Bacigalupo, a crude man of little integrity--a bookie with mob connections.
It is a precarious undertaking to write a novel of race relations without tipping into the sententious and obvious. The author made it there by half, but it leaked around the edges. Don Staples became little more than a straw for Taylor's pulpit themes, and Rachel and Lizzie (Mack's wife) became mere wisps, undercut by the grandiloquence. In essence, the story was preaching to the choir (i.e. the reader). I do not need to be convinced that segregation was heinous, or to read pithy sermons about human decency and racial equality. I wanted to get back to the individual families.
Taylor's focus and cadence drifted as his architecture staggered under its own weight. He selected a few individuals to expand upon, such as Ledford's son, Orb. He gave him an Edgar Sawtell-ish construction, and his story, while precious, meandered until it also became fuel for the big battle of good vs evil. I felt cheated at the end. Taylor demonstrated an art for creating crisp and eccentric and fully realized characters at the opening of the book, then retreated from them and the story of two families--one white and one black--in order to fulfill his larger themes. Ironically, he filled his canvas with more and more characters--too many to handle with care--and I got weary of the soapbox, even though I agreed with his politics.
This could have been a five-star book; the author has a gift for storytelling, and, when he chooses to, solid characterization. The scenes of Ledford as a marine were powerful and the men in the corps were superbly depicted. The problems ensued when he traded out the rich and textured story for the grand platform. At that point, individuals became either caricatures or cursory sketches. Taylor gets his point across, and at times I was captivated; however, it was uneven and too often rhetorical. Nevertheless, I have faith in Taylor's skill as a writer, and I will undoubtedly be in line for his next book.
Loyal Ledford was orphaned as a young boy in 1935 by a reckless, drunk father. He lingers in Huntington, West Virginia, tending the furnace at night at The Mann Glass factory and squires the boss's daughter, Rachel, a company nurse. During the day, he goes to the local college. But he suffers from ennui and abruptly enlists as a serviceman in World War II. He returns after the war a haunted man from the horrors he has witnessed and the things he has done in the name of war. He is reemployed at Mann Glass, this time as a supervisor; marries Rachel; and starts a family. He befriends a black employee, Mack Wells, who has been subjected to ignorant prejudice. At night, Ledford is infected by abstract dreams that carry uncertain messages, which seem to be juxtapositions of past and future. He turns to whiskey for solace, which gradually alienates him from his home life.
Ledford is thoroughly disgusted by racial prejudice at the workplace and in the county. He leaves Mann Glass and enlists the help of his distant relatives, The Bonecutter Brothers, in order to start up The Marrowbone Marble Company, an act inspired by his dreams. He persuades Mack to leave and come with him on this new venture. Loyal wants to do more than open a marble company. He desires to build a community that is based on kinship between black and white, a town that is built on integrity and the rights of human beings of all persuasions. One brick, one stone at a time, this town will grow to represent partnership and community between all ethnicities and colors.
He seeks out a scholar, Reverend Don Staples, who becomes his mentor in all things from philosophy to religion to basic human relationships. Staples is a gentle Christian, a thoughtful theologian, not a fire and brimstone preacher. Ledford quits drinking and reestablishes his role as husband and father. He is determined to put his demons at rest and forge a meaningful future at Marrowbone Cut. However, he also maintains a friendship with a fellow serviceman, Chicagoan Erm Bacigalupo, a crude man of little integrity--a bookie with mob connections.
It is a precarious undertaking to write a novel of race relations without tipping into the sententious and obvious. The author made it there by half, but it leaked around the edges. Don Staples became little more than a straw for Taylor's pulpit themes, and Rachel and Lizzie (Mack's wife) became mere wisps, undercut by the grandiloquence. In essence, the story was preaching to the choir (i.e. the reader). I do not need to be convinced that segregation was heinous, or to read pithy sermons about human decency and racial equality. I wanted to get back to the individual families.
Taylor's focus and cadence drifted as his architecture staggered under its own weight. He selected a few individuals to expand upon, such as Ledford's son, Orb. He gave him an Edgar Sawtell-ish construction, and his story, while precious, meandered until it also became fuel for the big battle of good vs evil. I felt cheated at the end. Taylor demonstrated an art for creating crisp and eccentric and fully realized characters at the opening of the book, then retreated from them and the story of two families--one white and one black--in order to fulfill his larger themes. Ironically, he filled his canvas with more and more characters--too many to handle with care--and I got weary of the soapbox, even though I agreed with his politics.
This could have been a five-star book; the author has a gift for storytelling, and, when he chooses to, solid characterization. The scenes of Ledford as a marine were powerful and the men in the corps were superbly depicted. The problems ensued when he traded out the rich and textured story for the grand platform. At that point, individuals became either caricatures or cursory sketches. Taylor gets his point across, and at times I was captivated; however, it was uneven and too often rhetorical. Nevertheless, I have faith in Taylor's skill as a writer, and I will undoubtedly be in line for his next book.
May 26, 2010
Marrowbone Marble Factory is the story of the civil rights movement. Its seeds were in World War II when black and white soldiers fought together and got to know someone ‘different’. Loyal Ledford is one of these Vets. As he returns from war to his native West Virginia, marries, starts a family and wrestles with his war demons he decides to live fully rather than rely on whiskey. He’s descended from Native Americans and for generations his family has always lived apart in the mountains to avoid prejudice and its violence. Loyal becomes tired of the status quo at Mann Glass with it’s racial and class hierarchy. He quits this and starts his own company. Two older cousins still live up in the mountains on ancestral land and with their guidance he founds a utopian society that includes blacks and whites working together. The surrounding community objects but he’s able to win some of them over by providing jobs as well as food and clothing charities. Black and white children grow up together and take up the civil rights banner alongside the larger movement headed by Martin Luther King and others. As we all know the 60’s were a turbulent time when people at the fore front of the movement were no longer willing to stay quiet though they were determined to be non-violent.
Ledford remains loyal to two men he befriends during the war. One is an Italian Chicagoan with ties to the mob. The other is Mack, a black man who works in the same glass factory with Ledford and joins him as an equal in his Marble Factory. As so often occurs the women are left to work out the day to day reality of the men’s dreams with Mack’s wife Lizzie and Ledford’s wife Rachel becoming friends in order to raise their children side by side. I liked how Taylor worked earnestly to make this struggle real. There were some ugly and violently entrenched prejudices as well as long standing family feuds on the white’s parts as well as a sense of entitlement on their part towards blacks. There were a few characters who were slowly or suddenly able to overcome such ugliness however not so much because of principles, at least not at first. They realized they couldn’t live with such hatred anymore. It was destroying them. Or they saw the practical side of things. Change had arrived. They could either join in peacefully or keep kicking against the inevitable so they joined the idealists. The book was also realistic in showing the violence these changes stirred up. Taylor never looks away from that. For those of us who watched the 60’s from our couches this book will be eye opening. It was for me.
The weakness in this book was the black characters. I understand that his Taylor was telling this story through Ledford's eyes but Mack especially never quite came alive and he was Ledford's partner at work and in the movement.
Ledford remains loyal to two men he befriends during the war. One is an Italian Chicagoan with ties to the mob. The other is Mack, a black man who works in the same glass factory with Ledford and joins him as an equal in his Marble Factory. As so often occurs the women are left to work out the day to day reality of the men’s dreams with Mack’s wife Lizzie and Ledford’s wife Rachel becoming friends in order to raise their children side by side. I liked how Taylor worked earnestly to make this struggle real. There were some ugly and violently entrenched prejudices as well as long standing family feuds on the white’s parts as well as a sense of entitlement on their part towards blacks. There were a few characters who were slowly or suddenly able to overcome such ugliness however not so much because of principles, at least not at first. They realized they couldn’t live with such hatred anymore. It was destroying them. Or they saw the practical side of things. Change had arrived. They could either join in peacefully or keep kicking against the inevitable so they joined the idealists. The book was also realistic in showing the violence these changes stirred up. Taylor never looks away from that. For those of us who watched the 60’s from our couches this book will be eye opening. It was for me.
The weakness in this book was the black characters. I understand that his Taylor was telling this story through Ledford's eyes but Mack especially never quite came alive and he was Ledford's partner at work and in the movement.
July 31, 2010
I was extremely excited to read this, first and foremost, because it is set in West Virginia (which is where I grew up) and secondly, because I've heard great things about M. Glenn Taylor, whose first book, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. I must say that I was not disappointed with Mr. Taylor's work here. I was absolutely transported to another era where a cast of larger-than-life characters filled up the pages so much that I was afraid they might spill over the book's edges and sit right up beside me. I was pulled into the story and was never able to let go, as my every emotion was tapped. Just such an amazing world was created that it was as if your grandfather plopped down next to you, lit up a pipe, and said, "Lemme tell you a story..."
(First Reads Win)
(First Reads Win)
March 20, 2016
“The Marrowbone Marble Company” is a very unexpected novel. From its mouthful of a title to the rather bland and quiet few opening pages the reader is not given a hint at the ride they are in for. The novel starts off slowly, and then unexpectedly and out of nowhere you have fallen under its spell.
The text is written in the third person with the author letting us in and out of a multitude of characters’ heads, often times from sentence to sentence. We even get into the heads of minor characters, and as a result the novel and the world created has a very well rounded feeling. It is real.
I really don’t want to get into plot devices in this review. One of the joys for me while reading it was that I had no idea what was coming next. The text is episodic and takes place mainly in West Virginia between 1941 and 1969. The civil rights struggle is a key element in the story.
A delightful moment in the novel is the chapter that deals with the first service of the “Land of Canaan Congregational Church”. It ends up being a key scene in the novel though you would never think that while reading it. The manner in which it is written is an excellent example of the strengths of the style in which the author, Glenn Taylor, alternated point of view to great effect.
Every time I picked up the novel I was absorbed and it reads astonishing quickly. For the last 60 or so pages you will be loath to set the text down.
A criticism that some have leveled at “The Marrowbone Marble Company” is that it was preachy and too political. I’m not sure that it gets political in the sense of pitting republicans against democrats. It is West Virginia in the mid twentieth century, everyone is a democrat. Rather it is about good and bad people, and they fill every spectrum of humanity. The text can get preachy, but I really did not mind. In fact, I was emotional a few times while reading, and I was not prepared to be. Yes, lines like “I think God made all people good and then some of em get taught bad.” is sentimental, but so what! It’s also true!
Throughout the novel Mr. Taylor reveals information in a manner that gives you more details about a person or situation at a time that you are not anticipating it. He does this seamlessly. It is a mark of a very good writer.
After you have finished the book, go back and reread the Prologue. You will appreciate it on a whole other level. I love books that do that.
This text was an unexpected find and a great pleasure to read. Can’t say anything better about a book than that!
The text is written in the third person with the author letting us in and out of a multitude of characters’ heads, often times from sentence to sentence. We even get into the heads of minor characters, and as a result the novel and the world created has a very well rounded feeling. It is real.
I really don’t want to get into plot devices in this review. One of the joys for me while reading it was that I had no idea what was coming next. The text is episodic and takes place mainly in West Virginia between 1941 and 1969. The civil rights struggle is a key element in the story.
A delightful moment in the novel is the chapter that deals with the first service of the “Land of Canaan Congregational Church”. It ends up being a key scene in the novel though you would never think that while reading it. The manner in which it is written is an excellent example of the strengths of the style in which the author, Glenn Taylor, alternated point of view to great effect.
Every time I picked up the novel I was absorbed and it reads astonishing quickly. For the last 60 or so pages you will be loath to set the text down.
A criticism that some have leveled at “The Marrowbone Marble Company” is that it was preachy and too political. I’m not sure that it gets political in the sense of pitting republicans against democrats. It is West Virginia in the mid twentieth century, everyone is a democrat. Rather it is about good and bad people, and they fill every spectrum of humanity. The text can get preachy, but I really did not mind. In fact, I was emotional a few times while reading, and I was not prepared to be. Yes, lines like “I think God made all people good and then some of em get taught bad.” is sentimental, but so what! It’s also true!
Throughout the novel Mr. Taylor reveals information in a manner that gives you more details about a person or situation at a time that you are not anticipating it. He does this seamlessly. It is a mark of a very good writer.
After you have finished the book, go back and reread the Prologue. You will appreciate it on a whole other level. I love books that do that.
This text was an unexpected find and a great pleasure to read. Can’t say anything better about a book than that!
April 26, 2010
This was a First Reads win for me. I have to say that I do not know that I would have read it so soon (if at all, honestly) if I hadn't won it on First Reads, but I am sooooo glad I did. It started out a little slow for me--I thought the characters were a bit flat early on--and the plot seemed to be heading in a way I was not in the mood for. I was really hoping it wasn't going to go the way it seemed it was: guy sees horrors in WWII, comes home and drinks like a fish to get away from it, etc. But then, everything changed. It was not what I thought it was. It acquired depth and breadth that I didn't anticipate. I can't even tell you when the change happened; I just know that I suddenly found myself completely invested in the characters and the story--a powerful one covering the years 1941 to 1969 that involves war, race relations, following your dreams/heart, community, government corruption, injustice, and much more. All of the characters were very vivid--I could see the movie already in my head (with Jeff Bridges as Don Staples, a younger Tim Robbins as the main character, Loyal Ledford, and a younger Joe Pesci as Erm). Two characters who won a place in my heart were the Bonecutter brothers, Dimple and Wimpy. They reminded me of the brothers in Kent Haruf's Plainsong (another great book). You may judge them as simple or unintelligent at first glance, but there is a slowly-revealed wisdom there that cannot be denied. This book definitely surprised me.
July 13, 2010
ARC received through the First Reads giveaway program.
This was one of those books that I signed up for in First Reads, but I wasn't super-eager to read it. Boy, if I had only known! It only took 2 pages and I was hooked.
This is the story of Loyal Ledford and his marble factory, along with the desegregated community that springs up around it. It covers the time period between World War II and the first moon landing, and has the feel of an epic even though it's only 358 pages long. Taylor is wonderful at hinting at things--he may only write a few lines on something, but you feel what's going on behind the scenes. That's a rare gift.
Not everything is sunshine and daisies, of course. There's conflict, anger and heatbreak--but everything is resolved in a most satisfactory manner. The way this book wrapped up just felt right.
I'm sorry if this isn't the most coherent review. This book really moved me and it's hard to pinpoint exactly why. It's really beautiful, though. Highly recommended.
This was one of those books that I signed up for in First Reads, but I wasn't super-eager to read it. Boy, if I had only known! It only took 2 pages and I was hooked.
This is the story of Loyal Ledford and his marble factory, along with the desegregated community that springs up around it. It covers the time period between World War II and the first moon landing, and has the feel of an epic even though it's only 358 pages long. Taylor is wonderful at hinting at things--he may only write a few lines on something, but you feel what's going on behind the scenes. That's a rare gift.
Not everything is sunshine and daisies, of course. There's conflict, anger and heatbreak--but everything is resolved in a most satisfactory manner. The way this book wrapped up just felt right.
I'm sorry if this isn't the most coherent review. This book really moved me and it's hard to pinpoint exactly why. It's really beautiful, though. Highly recommended.
November 23, 2019
This slaps.
One of the most impeccably well-crafted, tightly controlled, slow-release books I've ever read. It's so fucking well written.
A masterful examination of human nature at a macro and micro scale, with a timely thematic refrain that ties everything together. It doesn't matter if you alone are a good person, if you stand apart from the systems of oppression and subjugation that keep others down, if the systems themselves remain.
And while that may sound likely too overly a political message for a novel to be this exceptionally enjoyable to read, it's not preachy or weird about it. Show don't tell and all that.
If you want to read a book that's like slipping into a real place in real time, and greedily experience a life that's not your own -- you could do a lot worse than dropping in to Marrowbone.
One of the most impeccably well-crafted, tightly controlled, slow-release books I've ever read. It's so fucking well written.
A masterful examination of human nature at a macro and micro scale, with a timely thematic refrain that ties everything together. It doesn't matter if you alone are a good person, if you stand apart from the systems of oppression and subjugation that keep others down, if the systems themselves remain.
And while that may sound likely too overly a political message for a novel to be this exceptionally enjoyable to read, it's not preachy or weird about it. Show don't tell and all that.
If you want to read a book that's like slipping into a real place in real time, and greedily experience a life that's not your own -- you could do a lot worse than dropping in to Marrowbone.
September 7, 2020
This is the first book I've ever cried at the ending of. Glenn Taylor is incredible.
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October 3, 2011Giving up ... Can't get into this one. May just be the wrong time so will try again another time but just finding characters dull, flat & boring. Things happen and invariably not very good but finding myself not giving a hoot ! And up to 30% now so going to stop and try again later before rating.
May 22, 2015
Yes there will be spoilers ahead... hold on tight through my ramblings...
"The Marrowbone Marble Company" is a story about a man named Ledford. A man who has different ideas then most of his time. A man who promotes change and drudges through life's struggles to get there. A man with a vision. It is also about civil rights, right and wrong, family, friendship, and so much more.
I enjoyed this story. At first, when I began reading this, I thought it would be a tale of war, like many I had read before, but Taylor takes the story in directions that I wasn't expecting and I appreciated it. His attention to little details was refreshing and enhanced the story even if I wasn't always sure why he had chosen to include some of said details.
There were a lot of characters in this book. So many that it was really on the cusp of being too many characters. I often had to stop and say to myself "Now who is this again". The three "badies" in the book ran together. Now I don't know if this was a bad thing or not. Was Taylor trying to show that fighting for good is against generic characters in society?
My favorite character was Orb, Ledford's son. Orb is a strange child and although we don't know a lot of the specifics of Orb's affliction, it doesn't matter. The details that were described made him real and made me connect with this boy. He was innocent in his own right and again it makes me wonder if Taylor molded this character as something bigger; more societal driven. This connection that I felt with Orb did not go unused by the author. If he was looking to illict an emotional response, he definitely was able to do so by having something tragic occur to this reader's favorite character in the book.
How much can one man, Ledford, go through and keep his morals and convictions?
This book is definitely about the characters. Which one am I closely related to? Which role do I play? Which roles do my friends and family members; colleagues and enemies; Which ones do they play?
"The Marrowbone Marble Company" is a story about a man named Ledford. A man who has different ideas then most of his time. A man who promotes change and drudges through life's struggles to get there. A man with a vision. It is also about civil rights, right and wrong, family, friendship, and so much more.
I enjoyed this story. At first, when I began reading this, I thought it would be a tale of war, like many I had read before, but Taylor takes the story in directions that I wasn't expecting and I appreciated it. His attention to little details was refreshing and enhanced the story even if I wasn't always sure why he had chosen to include some of said details.
There were a lot of characters in this book. So many that it was really on the cusp of being too many characters. I often had to stop and say to myself "Now who is this again". The three "badies" in the book ran together. Now I don't know if this was a bad thing or not. Was Taylor trying to show that fighting for good is against generic characters in society?
My favorite character was Orb, Ledford's son. Orb is a strange child and although we don't know a lot of the specifics of Orb's affliction, it doesn't matter. The details that were described made him real and made me connect with this boy. He was innocent in his own right and again it makes me wonder if Taylor molded this character as something bigger; more societal driven. This connection that I felt with Orb did not go unused by the author. If he was looking to illict an emotional response, he definitely was able to do so by having something tragic occur to this reader's favorite character in the book.
How much can one man, Ledford, go through and keep his morals and convictions?
This book is definitely about the characters. Which one am I closely related to? Which role do I play? Which roles do my friends and family members; colleagues and enemies; Which ones do they play?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2010
The protagonists of The Marrowbone Marble Company share the same slow and determined methodical air that permeates M. Glenn Taylor’s portrayal of mid-century West Virginia—but that’s hardly surprising is it? With the main character of a name Loyal Ledford, it’s no surprise the whole cast consists of down-home, hard-working folks making do in a harsh land.
And that’s the major problem with the novel, it delivers exactly what’d you expect. Its motives are well enough: to conjure those ghosts of racism and inequality of the era—and the hope of people fighting to change it. But the execution often feels contrived due to paper-thin character motivation that isn’t well masked with pretentious literary imagery. It all feels like a particularly sluggishly didactic lecture about the horrors of racism… and profit-only motivated business … and trauma of war on soldiers… and drinking… an-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Rating: 1.5 stars
**I received The Marrowbone Marble Company from the Goodreads’s First Reads.
And that’s the major problem with the novel, it delivers exactly what’d you expect. Its motives are well enough: to conjure those ghosts of racism and inequality of the era—and the hope of people fighting to change it. But the execution often feels contrived due to paper-thin character motivation that isn’t well masked with pretentious literary imagery. It all feels like a particularly sluggishly didactic lecture about the horrors of racism… and profit-only motivated business … and trauma of war on soldiers… and drinking… an-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Rating: 1.5 stars
**I received The Marrowbone Marble Company from the Goodreads’s First Reads.
July 27, 2014
This novel is written in a standoffish and brusk style, with short, matter-of-fact sentences that aren't exactly brimming over with emotion. It's the sort of book where you might read a passage like: "Ma died that fall. The corn harvest was good. We got a new dog."
Thus it took almost the full book to feel like I really knew the characters, but I'm pleased to say that it was worth it. Even some of the lesser characters - that throughout the book I kept getting mixed up and couldn't remember where they came from - by the end had endeared themselves to me.
I was concerned that I would be disappointed with the ending, and that the cool hand of the author meant that he might not care if it satisfied the reader's need for closure, so I'm very pleased that did not happen. I enjoyed the book very much, especially the last few chapters.
Thus it took almost the full book to feel like I really knew the characters, but I'm pleased to say that it was worth it. Even some of the lesser characters - that throughout the book I kept getting mixed up and couldn't remember where they came from - by the end had endeared themselves to me.
I was concerned that I would be disappointed with the ending, and that the cool hand of the author meant that he might not care if it satisfied the reader's need for closure, so I'm very pleased that did not happen. I enjoyed the book very much, especially the last few chapters.
April 25, 2010
Disclaimer: I received this book as part of the Goodreads First Reads sweepstakes.
I really enjoyed this book. The imagery was very vivid and the characters were well developed.
There were so many dynamics to keep you intrigued throughout this read. The author explores the relationships between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, people being unfulfilled at their jobs, but doing what they have to do to support a growing family.
Racial injustices and society's reaction to returning veterans are discussed, but not in a righteous, soap-boxy way.
If you're looking for an interesting stories with many facets that turns out to be a reasonably fast-paced read, then look no further.
I really enjoyed this book. The imagery was very vivid and the characters were well developed.
There were so many dynamics to keep you intrigued throughout this read. The author explores the relationships between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, people being unfulfilled at their jobs, but doing what they have to do to support a growing family.
Racial injustices and society's reaction to returning veterans are discussed, but not in a righteous, soap-boxy way.
If you're looking for an interesting stories with many facets that turns out to be a reasonably fast-paced read, then look no further.
February 11, 2016
I remember learning about Appalachia in elementary school - and wanting to know more. Same country, different state - different lives. Set in West VA, this book provides an education and a story; it tracks the life of Loyal Ledford and his family in West VA during the 40's, 50's and 60's. After WWII, Loyal struggles to come to terms with his experiences as a Marine in Guadalcanal and to build his utopian dream - black and white living and working together in Marrowbone, WVA. The native-American Bonecutter brothers and the old-timers show us how Appalachia is changing - alongside the seismic changes wrought by the civil rights movement. Taylor's language is arresting, as is the state, the people and the time he portrays. There's a lot to savor here.
September 13, 2011
I really liked this one from Glenn Taylor. Spanning decades in rural West Virginia, this is an openly idealistic look at a community who attempts to live more socially progressive despite the racism of the times [1940s-1960s] and the area. It's pretty much a commune these people set up in the rural hollers of West Virginia as they attempt to be self-sufficient. I guess you could call this a "rural utopia" that these people attempt to create. Taylor's writing is really clean and straight forward [my favorite] and the tone is serious and wonderful throughout. I had very little expectations for this, but here it is getting a rare 5 stars from me and it will be one of my favorites of 2011.
November 17, 2017
My pet peeves. A list. No, just one item. Big one though.
Sentence fragments. Drive me nuts. Doubling over. In pain. Oh, the pretentiousness!
That's why I quit The Marrowbone Marble Company. Amazon fell in love with this book, touting it as one of the best of whatever year it came out. A story about simple people who have a good idea and start up a company sounds tempting, no? I love those kinds of stories.
But Taylor, man of fragments, came off like a rank amateur. Maybe he should try his hand at haiku.
I did, however, love running my fingers over the embossed bird wings on the book jacket.
Sentence fragments. Drive me nuts. Doubling over. In pain. Oh, the pretentiousness!
That's why I quit The Marrowbone Marble Company. Amazon fell in love with this book, touting it as one of the best of whatever year it came out. A story about simple people who have a good idea and start up a company sounds tempting, no? I love those kinds of stories.
But Taylor, man of fragments, came off like a rank amateur. Maybe he should try his hand at haiku.
I did, however, love running my fingers over the embossed bird wings on the book jacket.
August 11, 2013
One of my Most Favorite Ever
January 5, 2025
Although I grew up in the 1950s, my ear isn't so good that I remember how language sounded. But I do remember how old tv shows and movies sound, and this novel takes me back to the 50s, despite being copyrighted in 2010.
It's set between the early 1940s and 60s, in West Virginia, somewhere I've never been even close to. There is a darkness to this novel that troubled me too much at first. I almost stopped reading it.
Middle aged identical twins are bonded to one another, and no one else, it seems. Huge, dark complexioned and black bearded, they loom sternly and silently over Marrowbone, the land they have inherited through previous generations.
They are the last living souls of the Bonecutter family. They identify as mixed race, valuing their "Indian" heritage, and there is a picture of an Indigenous grandmother within a family album. This may help to explain their ease with allowing their cousin, Loyal Ledford, to bring his family and friends including Blacks to their land to settle, as the other people in the area are white and firmly in favour of segregation.
Loyal has enough money from his wife's inheritance and his military pension to hand build a glass factory on Marrowbone, which provides employment for other liberal minded people, although the area beyond the Bonecutter's property is anything but liberal.
Although the twins have no modern conveniences, and have lived alone for decades, they are fine with Loyal's plans for a marble making factory because he explains the idea came to him in a dream. They had been waiting their lives for him to appear, although he had only recently learned about them and how he was related to them.
The old timey atmosphere is highlighted in the descriptions of the visitors who come to see the grand opening of the marble factory. A little boy had been told to wash his face first, so he takes the washcloth, and cleans only the very centre of his face, leaving a smudgy grey ring around the rest of it.
Although the visitors are treated to good food and drink, the opening doesn't go as well as hoped, because the inhabitants of the area outside of the Bonecutter's land are too set in their racist and gullible ways to accept that people of different races can live in a cooperative community, and not be the still most feared group --"communists".
This novel moves through the days of Martin Luther King and beyond, ending on a note that is optimistic.
I am closer to giving this novel 5 stars, but couldn't always understand the descriptions. Although the writing is vivid and compelling, I could not picture the topography of the land. It seemed dark and heavily forested, yet a garden grew in the middle of it. There was something described as the "cut". Google told me this could have been an area that had been logged, but I kept imagining a very deep valley, and at the same time the story was set in the mountains, with a ridge higher up. I won't go into why this was physically impossible, for fear of spoilers. There was another description that was physically impossible and occasional typos that a good editor should have spotted. I was bewildered by the physicality of the environment they lived in, other than to get the sense it was dark, with a heavy sense of foreboding throughout the story. Yet it ended well, more or less, at least for Loyal Ledford and immediate family.
It's set between the early 1940s and 60s, in West Virginia, somewhere I've never been even close to. There is a darkness to this novel that troubled me too much at first. I almost stopped reading it.
Middle aged identical twins are bonded to one another, and no one else, it seems. Huge, dark complexioned and black bearded, they loom sternly and silently over Marrowbone, the land they have inherited through previous generations.
They are the last living souls of the Bonecutter family. They identify as mixed race, valuing their "Indian" heritage, and there is a picture of an Indigenous grandmother within a family album. This may help to explain their ease with allowing their cousin, Loyal Ledford, to bring his family and friends including Blacks to their land to settle, as the other people in the area are white and firmly in favour of segregation.
Loyal has enough money from his wife's inheritance and his military pension to hand build a glass factory on Marrowbone, which provides employment for other liberal minded people, although the area beyond the Bonecutter's property is anything but liberal.
Although the twins have no modern conveniences, and have lived alone for decades, they are fine with Loyal's plans for a marble making factory because he explains the idea came to him in a dream. They had been waiting their lives for him to appear, although he had only recently learned about them and how he was related to them.
The old timey atmosphere is highlighted in the descriptions of the visitors who come to see the grand opening of the marble factory. A little boy had been told to wash his face first, so he takes the washcloth, and cleans only the very centre of his face, leaving a smudgy grey ring around the rest of it.
Although the visitors are treated to good food and drink, the opening doesn't go as well as hoped, because the inhabitants of the area outside of the Bonecutter's land are too set in their racist and gullible ways to accept that people of different races can live in a cooperative community, and not be the still most feared group --"communists".
This novel moves through the days of Martin Luther King and beyond, ending on a note that is optimistic.
I am closer to giving this novel 5 stars, but couldn't always understand the descriptions. Although the writing is vivid and compelling, I could not picture the topography of the land. It seemed dark and heavily forested, yet a garden grew in the middle of it. There was something described as the "cut". Google told me this could have been an area that had been logged, but I kept imagining a very deep valley, and at the same time the story was set in the mountains, with a ridge higher up. I won't go into why this was physically impossible, for fear of spoilers. There was another description that was physically impossible and occasional typos that a good editor should have spotted. I was bewildered by the physicality of the environment they lived in, other than to get the sense it was dark, with a heavy sense of foreboding throughout the story. Yet it ended well, more or less, at least for Loyal Ledford and immediate family.
January 30, 2025
When I grew up, the surfaces of my childhood were sand, scraggly Bermuda grass, and gravelly asphalt for roads. My parents, who grew up back East, had skills that I never had an opportunity to learn as a child, such as roller skating. Even learning to ride a bike was a fairly dodgy proposition. And one of those old school skills, for my Dad, was shooting marbles. I understand he was pretty damned good at it. The “Marble”, in the title of this book, is that kind of marble, and said company was a very lucrative one.
But let’s back up. Loyal Ledford has returned, after serving in WWII, to the hills of West Virginia and is troubled by the Jim Crow society that he had accepted as the norm before he left. He returns to his job at Mann Glass works, but is looking for a better life. This is when he meets up with his cousins, the mysterious and half indigenous Bonecutter brothers, Wimpy and Dimple (some real Reservation Dogs vibes with these two). They own Marrowbone Cut, an untouched valley, that is the land Ledford has been looking for. Along with a black friend and coworker, and their respective families, they establish the Marrowbone Marble Company, producer of the finest marbles anywhere. Though most other residents in the area scorn them, they eventually entice other like-minded folk, many unlikely allies, to join them. But through the 50s and 60s, violence is never far away.
I remember those years, but this was a very different perspective than one I ever knew, isolated, but not entirely cut off from the outside world. Wish I still had my Dad’s marbles.
But let’s back up. Loyal Ledford has returned, after serving in WWII, to the hills of West Virginia and is troubled by the Jim Crow society that he had accepted as the norm before he left. He returns to his job at Mann Glass works, but is looking for a better life. This is when he meets up with his cousins, the mysterious and half indigenous Bonecutter brothers, Wimpy and Dimple (some real Reservation Dogs vibes with these two). They own Marrowbone Cut, an untouched valley, that is the land Ledford has been looking for. Along with a black friend and coworker, and their respective families, they establish the Marrowbone Marble Company, producer of the finest marbles anywhere. Though most other residents in the area scorn them, they eventually entice other like-minded folk, many unlikely allies, to join them. But through the 50s and 60s, violence is never far away.
I remember those years, but this was a very different perspective than one I ever knew, isolated, but not entirely cut off from the outside world. Wish I still had my Dad’s marbles.
February 12, 2019
Glenn Taylor is a wonderfully talented storyteller, but this book falls into the category of Sophomore Slump. It also falls into the category of a fantasy of hindsight, in which people imagine themselves retaining their modern, enlightened sensibilities in some historic conflict. Like the devoted fan of To Kill a Mockingbird, who hopes he or she would be like Atticus if they woke up white in Alabama in 1929. Here, Taylor imagines his protagonist, Loyal Ledford, leading a racially harmonious commune tucked into the hills of West Virginia post-WWII. The good characters are unfailingly good and talented and usually victorious, and the bad characters do only bad things and always eventually lose. Two secondary characters are realistically complicated exceptions: Ledford’s war buddy Erm, and the local sheriff, Paul Maynard. Erm is a mobster as loyal as he is casually violent, and the reader never knows which impulse will be dominant. Maynard is from the clan historically at murderous odds with the Ledford’s people. (It’s West Virginia, so a bit of Hatfield v McCoy is well-trod ground.)
If the characters are weakly developed, the story is engaging and well-paced, and I am always happy to immerse myself in a world where goodness is rewarded and badness is punished.
If the characters are weakly developed, the story is engaging and well-paced, and I am always happy to immerse myself in a world where goodness is rewarded and badness is punished.
September 24, 2021
A powerful, thought-provoking and memorable story which, through its cast of exceptionally well-drawn characters, explores the seismic events which brought about so much societal and political change during the years between 1941-1968. I found it disturbing to be reminded of the extent of racial prejudice in America during those decades and the threats faced by those who were determined to bring about change. Although I know that significant progress has been made since 1968, I find it equally disturbing that examples of inequality and prejudice continue to dominate the news, demonstrating just how much more progress needs to be made!
January 22, 2021
So much pain contained in this book that it was, for me, difficult to read at times despite the beautiful manner of writing that Taylor has. These were difficult times - another period of transition from division and inequity, that’s why it’s a hard read. Man’s capacity for harm to his fellow man - and in the USA, and my current homeland of Australia, the Black Lives Matter movement seems to indicate not too much has changed, maybe just the covertness has increased.
A great book. Deserving of wide readership.
A great book. Deserving of wide readership.
August 24, 2025
The lifetime of Loyal Ledford, the West Virginia man at the center of this novel, spans the middle part of the twentieth century, when societal changes were happening all around, but at a cost. After serving in WWII Loyal returns home, marries, has two children, and opens a marble factory in the rural part of the state. He employs blacks, who are not welcome in the community but with whom he becomes close friends. Civil rights is a large theme in the book, but so is the struggle of a decent man seeking to live in a largely indecent world.
November 25, 2018
This book is not an easy read, I'm note sure if it was the pace, the style, or the use of language including the American slang that I stumbled with. There were pints where I had no idea what was happening. However, when I could understand the plot, and from what I could understand the story is quite good. The characters have depth and can be related too.
If you can stick to it it's worth it.
If you can stick to it it's worth it.
May 16, 2022
2.5 rounded down.
The adjectives that come to mind are: clunky, cumbersome, cluttered, aimless.
It felt very much like this book had no idea what it was or wanted to be. I wasn’t hooked until the last 3% of the book. The rest I read out of respect for the author. And it was a slog at most points.
In short, this was no Trenchmouth. Not even close. It barely feels like the same author.
The adjectives that come to mind are: clunky, cumbersome, cluttered, aimless.
It felt very much like this book had no idea what it was or wanted to be. I wasn’t hooked until the last 3% of the book. The rest I read out of respect for the author. And it was a slog at most points.
In short, this was no Trenchmouth. Not even close. It barely feels like the same author.
July 8, 2019
3.25 stars. The pacing of the book is a little slow at first then really picks up. Honestly, I think I would have liked it more if I were into historical fiction. I did enjoy seeing how the characters dealt with social justice issues during the civil rights movement in West Virginia.
November 13, 2020
Audiobook from WV Library. I loved this book. Set in Huntington and Wayne County, WV it moves from the 1920's to 1968. A glimpse at history through rural Appalachian lives. The characters are colorful and sincere. The settings are spot on. The author is a Huntingtonian and it shows.
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