Tennant's Rock

ISBN: 031226657X

Author: McGiffen, Steve

Condition: New

From Publishers Weekly Set in California's Sacramento Valley in 1866, McGiffen's believably bleak first novel follows the travails of a cruelly mistreated young woman. Though she is not yet 20, Sissy has two children by Swann, a brutal and abusive man who in every instance save the legal one has taken Sissy as his wife. All four live with Sissy's mother, Ma, on the farm Ma's late husband left to her. When Sissy's brother, Nate, fresh from spending 10 years in jail for killing their father and then fighting for the Union in the Civil War, returns home to reclaim what he considers to be his farm, Sissy's world is upturned. The story Nate tells his younger sister about the death of their father couldn't be more different from the one their mother tells, and Sissy doesn't know whose version to believe. Soon she begins to meet Nate late at night on nearby Tennant's Rock, where she learns from him not only the horrors of prison and of war but also how to read. As time passes, she comes to trust him, only to experience another in her familiar string of painful disappointments. Though leavened by occasional glimpses of Ma's dark humor, McGiffen's debut is a brooding affair, a lesser version of Cormac McCarthy's early novels. The well-worn gun-against-gun, who-shot-who ending, one common to countless films and television dramas, is truly a disappointment, only somewhat offset by the novel's denouement, when Sissy is able to look back at her life and make some semblance of sense from all she has done and, more importantly, all she has had done to her. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Product Description In the American West of the nineteenth-century, Sissy struggles to deal with the return of her brother Nate, out of prison after killing their father, and with the the abusive man who has usurped her brother's role as head of the family. From Library Journal At age 13, narrator Sissy is raped by a violent intruder into her Sacramento Valley farm home during the 1860s. The intruder, Swan, stays and becomes the man of the house because Sissy and her mother are powerless to stop him. By the time she is 16, Sissy has conceived two children through his violence and humiliation. Yet she and her mother consider this just something they have to endure to ensure the farm's survival. When her brother Nate returns from prison for murdering their father, Sissy prays that he will rescue them from Swan. This absorbing first novel packs an emotional wallop as the reader roots for Sissy in her struggle and determination to overcome illiteracy, abuse, and dependence on men. McGiffen, an accomplished British historian (with a Ph.D. in American history) does not romanticize the Old West, instead exposing its harsh realities. Though he does not offer as much descriptive detail as Nancy Turner in These Is My Words (LJ 2/15/98), another excellent historical novel about women in the Wild West, his emphasis on the vulnerability and isolation of women during this period is powerfully affecting. Recommended for all public libraries. Barbara L. Roberts, Scottsdale, AZ Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist The women in this novel, which is set in the late nineteenth century, can't seem to manage without a man. Such is the plight of Sissy and her mother, who put up with an abusive madman who shows up on their farm one day and proceeds to establish himself as head of their household. Sissy fears this man's temper and lust, and she prays for her brother, Nate, to come home from his Civil War prison. Events and actions in Sissy's life, however, rarely go as she plans--or even hopes--and Nate's return, while a wonderful occasion, proves to her that he is not to be her savior. Now Sissy has to learn to depend on her own strength and survival skills. Although bleak at times, this novel is an accomplished reflection on the power of love and inner strength, sure to please readers of historical fictio

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