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After 30 years, a nameless woman returns to her childhood home of Hyde Bend, a small Polish Catholic town near the Allegheny Mountains, to attend her mother's funeral. At the graveside she meets her brother, Martin, a man without a job and living off his Welfare checks. She hasn't spoken to her brother in years and she doesn't say much to him during their mother's funeral in fear that she will tell him the truth about why she left. As the funeral begins the woman thinks back to 1941 when she was 12 years old and Martin was eight. Their father worked nights in the steel mill and got drunk during the day. Their mother worked in the rectory as a cleaning woman and cooked for the priest and had little time for her son and daughter. The family lived in a two-room, cold shack in the worst section of the dreary town. All the residents of their block had to share the one outhouse with each other and with the rats that lived there at night. One day the girl notices that her mother's favorite painting, The Black Madonna, is no longer hanging on the wall. Thinking that her father sold it so he could get drunk at the local bar, the girl persuades the town's butcher to hire her as his delivery boy so she can earn enough money to buy the painting back. Dressed as a boy, so no one will recognize her, the girl makes her daily meat deliveries and discovers things about her community and her neighbors. When one of the richest women in town is murdered, a recluse near the murder scene tells the delivery 'boy' that she knows who killed the woman. As the girl discovers the truth about the murder, her life abruptly changes and she sees her family and the community in a startling new light. THE GRAVE OF GOD'S DAUGHTER is short story writer Brett Ellen Block's first novel. Ms Block weaves the history of a strong love between sister and brother that is shattered by the community's dishonesty and the guilt from the lies that she tells in order to protect her family. Set in a poor, troubled town just before the Second World War, Ms Block introduces us to a cast of characters who are doing their best in order to survive. The novel is full of emotional sadness, and it lingers with the reader well after the book is finished. Well-written and very disturbing, THE GRAVE OF GOD'S DAUGHTER, is one of the finest novels I've read in a long time. I thoroughly urge everyone to find this book and read it to savor Brett Ellen Block's gift with words . It's a remarkable work.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, April 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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