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Outstanding Praise for the Novels of T. Greenwood
Undressing the Moon
“This beautiful story, eloquently told, demands attention.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Greenwood has skillfully managed to create a novel with unforgettable characters, finely honed descriptions, and beautiful imagery.”
—Book Street USA
“A lyrical, delicately affecting tale.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Rarely has a writer rendered such highly charged topics…to so wrenching, yet so beautifully understated, an effect…T. Greenwood takes on risky subject matter, handling her volatile topics with admirable restraint…. Ultimately more about life than death, Undressing the Moon beautifully elucidates the human capacity to maintain grace under unrelenting fire.”
—The Los Angeles Times
The Hungry Season
“This compelling study of a family in need of rescue is very effective, owing to Greenwood’s eloquent, exquisite word artistry and her knack for developing subtle, suspenseful scenes…. Greenwood’s sensitive and gripping examination of a family in crisis is real, complex, and anything but formulaic.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“A deeply psychological read.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Can there be life after tragedy? How do you live with the loss of a child, let alone the separation emotionally from all your loved ones? T. Greenwood with beautiful prose poses this question while delving into the psyches of a successful man, his wife, and his son…. This is a wonderful story, engaging from the beginning that gets better with every chapter.”
—The Washington Times
Two Rivers
“From the moment the train derails in the town of Two Rivers, I was hooked. Who is this mysterious young stranger named Maggie, and what is she running from? In Two Rivers, T. Greenwood weaves a haunting story in which the sins of the past threaten to destroy the fragile equilibrium of the present. Ripe with surprising twists and heart-breakingly real characters, Two Rivers is a remarkable and complex look at race and forgiveness in small-town America.”
—Michelle Richmond, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Fog and No One You Know
“Two Rivers is a convergence of tales, a reminder that the past never washes away, and yet, in T. Greenwood’s delicate handling of time gone and time to come, love and forgiveness wait on the other side of what life does to us and what we do to it. This novel is a sensitive and suspenseful portrayal of family and the ties that bind.”
—Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever and River of Heaven
“The premise of Two Rivers is alluring: the very morning a deadly train derailment upsets the balance of a sleepy Vermont town, a mysterious girl shows up on Harper Montgomery’s doorstep, forcing him to dredge up a lifetime of memories—from his blissful, indelible childhood to his lonely, contemporary existence. Most of all, he must look long and hard at that terrible night twelve years ago, when everything he held dear was taken from him, and he, in turn, took back. T. Greenwood’s novel is full of love, betrayal, lost hopes, and a burning question: is it ever too late to find redemption?”
—Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of The Effects of Light and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize–winning Set Me Free
“Greenwood is a writer of subtle strength, evoking small-town life beautifully while spreading out the map of Harper’s life, finding light in the darkest of stories.”
—Publishers Weekly
“T. Greenwood’s writing shimmers and sings as she braids together past, present, and the events of one desperate day. I ached for Harper in all of his longing, guilt, grief, and vast, abiding love, and I rejoiced at his final, hard-won shot at redemption.”
—Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of Belong to Me and Love Walked In
“Two Rivers is a stark, haunting story of redemption and salvation. T. Greenwood portrays a world of beauty and peace that, once disturbed, reverberates with searing pain and inescapable consequences; this is a story of a man who struggles with the deepest, darkest parts of his soul, and is able to fight his way to the surface to breathe again. But also—maybe more so—it is the story of a man who learns the true meaning of family: When I am with you, I am home. A memorable, powerful work.”
—Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
“A complex tale of guilt, remorse, revenge, and forgiveness…Convincing…Interesting…”
—Library Journal
“In the tradition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, T. Greenwood’s Two Rivers is a wonderfully distinctive American novel, abounding with memorable characters, unusual lore and history, dark family secrets, and love of life. Two Rivers is the story that people want to read: the one they have never read before.”
—Howard Frank Mosher, author of Walking to Gatlinburg
“Two Rivers is a dark and lovely elegy, filled with heartbreak that turns itself into hope and forgiveness. I felt so moved by this luminous novel.”
—Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author
“Two Rivers is reminiscent of Thornton Wilder, with its quiet New England town shadowed by tragedy, and of Sherwood Anderson, with its sense of desperate loneliness and regret…. It’s to Greenwood’s credit that she answers her novel’s mysteries in ways that are believable, that make you feel the sadness that informs her characters’ lives.”
—Bookpage
BOOKS BY T. GREENWOOD
The Hungry Season
Two Rivers
Undressing the Moon
Nearer Than the Sky
Breathing Water
UNDRESSING the MOON
T. Greenwood
KENSINGTON BOOKS
For my grandmothers…
and for Janet
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you (as always) to Christy Fletcher for really listening to my voice. To Ron and Bradi Ross for the necessary lyrics. To Samantha Ruckman, Beya Stewart, and Whitney Lee for pointing out the sour notes, and to Julia Pastore for fixing them. To my family, my best audience. And to Patrick, my breath.
Things break. I’ve come to terms with that in my own strange way. I realize that there are things that will hurt us and things that will keep us safe; that sometimes it’s hard to discover the line between them, and that sometimes they are the same thing.
—Kevin Wilson
from “A World of Glass,” Oxford American,
September/October 1999
She was always at the edge of leaving.
Cattails stand guard along the banks of the Pond. I am six years old, and I cannot swim. The cattails keep me safe. The air is so thick with summer it’s hard to swallow; it’s even hard