Violet Rue is a twelve-year-old girl, the last of the seven children of her family. A family like a tree, roots entangled. But she will betray her family, and they will never forgive her. This young girl will live a solitary life, trying to find her identity without a family, with men abusing her, carrying the fear that her brothers will take revenge. This book is an intense read with racism, rough sex, and misogyny, and my first Carol Joyce Oates. I will go back to her for sure.
“My wish is to live a life in which emotions come slowly as clouds on a calm day. You see the approach, you contemplate the beauty of the cloud, you observe it passing, you let it go. You do not dwell upon what you have seen, you do not regret it. You are content to understand that the identical cloud will never come again, no matter how beautiful, unique. You do not weep at its loss.”