Amy Franklin-Willis
With enormous heart and dazzling agility, Amy Franklin-Willis expertly mines the fault lines in one Southern working-class family. Driven by the soulful voices of forty-two-year-old Ezekiel Cooper and his mother, Lillian, ,The Lost Saints of Tennessee, journeys from the 1940s to 1980s as it follows Zekeâ€™s evolution from anointed son, to honorable sibling, to unhinged middle-aged man.,After Zeke loses his twin brother in a mysterious drowning and his wife to divorce, only ghosts remain in his hometown of Clayton, Tennessee. Zeke makes the decision to leave town in a final attempt to escape his pain, throwing his two treasured possessionsÂ—a copy of ,The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and his dead brotherâ€™s ancient dogÂ—into his truck, and heads east. He leaves behind two young daughters and his estranged mother, who reveals her own conflicting view of the Cooper family story in a vulnerable but spirited voice stricken by guilt over old sins and clinging to the hope that her family isnâ€™t beyond repair.,When Zeke finds refuge with cousins in Virginia horse country, divine acts in the form of severe weather, illness, and a new romance collide, leading Zeke to a crossroads where he must decide the fate of his family.
Fiction,American,Southern,Historical,Historical Fiction,Family,Contemporary,Death,Novels,Adult Fiction,Literary Fiction,Young Adult,Coming Of Age
The Lost Saints of Tennessee