Groundskeeping: A Read with Jenna Pick (Unabridged)
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • An indelible love story about two very different people navigating the entanglements of class and identity and coming of age in an America coming apart at the seams—this is "an extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations" (Ann Patchett, best-selling author of The Dutch House).
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course.
Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks—a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma—who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants—struggles to understand Owen’s fraught relationship with family and home.
Exquisitely written; expertly crafted; dazzling in its precision, restraint, and depth of feeling, Groundskeeping is a novel of haunting power and grace from a prodigiously gifted young writer.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Debut author Lee Cole explores love, life, and everything that divides us in modern America in this gorgeous novel. Aspiring writer Owen Callahan left small-town Kentucky to become a groundskeeper at a college, where he takes a writing class on the side. Soon he meets another writer, a daughter of Bosnian immigrants named Alma, and the two fall in love. But this novel is way more than a love story. It’s about the differences in beliefs, values, and experiences that fill Owen and Alma’s relationship with stunning complexity. Through Cole’s vivid writing, we immediately empathized with both of these captivating characters. There are startling turns of phrase and brilliant metaphors we wanted to hear over and over. Narrator Michael Crouch expertly delivers Owen’s many thoughts and observations and portrays all the story’s fascinating supporting characters with a fantastic range of voices. Engrossing and heartfelt, Groundskeeping is a blistering debut.
Customer Reviews
Great then eh
Loved the book but felt like the ending was too rushed