"What I wanted felt like a hunger, rising from my ribs, my throat, starved for something immense, golden," writes Michelle Hoover in The Quickening. Hoover's debut novel is a beautiful written book that follows the lives of Mary and Enidina who live on neighboring farms during the early 1900s. As with most books I've read this year, this is a book with both tragedy and heartbreak. Hoover's writing reminded me of Marilynne Robinson, but with grittier detail and a more character-driven story line.
Hoover's narrative voice is distinctive and she writes with a subtle smolder. Some of the sentences are crafted to perfection. Nonetheless, if I were to recommend books about hardscrabble farm life, I would give Amy Greene's Bloodroot and Kent Haruf's Plainsong even higher praise.
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