Tributary
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3.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Utah Book Award Winner
WILLA Literary Finalist Award Winner
"A quest to belong is the theme of this novel from Richardson, whose lyrical prose and heartfelt characters shine through."
&mdashPUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A misfit in a Mormon frontier town, Clair Martin shows what polygamy feels like from inside the fold. Her stubborn search for identity takes Clair beyond the confines of the Utah Territory to the slums of Reconstruction Dixie, and back again. Here, one young woman's life becomes a quiet revolution to untangle what you inherit from what you need.
BARBARA K. RICHARDSON's debut novel, Guest House, launched the first literary Truck Stop Tour in the nation. In Tributary, she claims the land of her Mormon ancestors who settled the northern Salt Lake Valley. Richardson earned an MFA in poetry from Eastern Washington University. Aside from writing, Barbara has renovated four houses, enjoyed Argentine tango, fallen in love with tai chi, helped can the West's finest plum jam, adored conifers, and planted thousands of trees and shrubs for others. Barbara is also an avid environmentalist. She lives in Kamas, Utah.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A quest to belong is the theme of this novel from Richardson (Guest House), whose lyrical prose and heartfelt characters shine through. Orphan girl Clair Martin is defined by a large strawberry birthmark that covers one side of her face, making her an object of scorn and suspicion in Brigham City, Utah, in the 1860s. But her disfigurement also protects her from polygamy, making her an outsider in a society that is preoccupied with righteousness but also has an undercurrent of violence. Eager to find her birth parents, Clair moves to New Orleans and Ocean Springs, Miss., before returning to Mormon country on her own terms as a farmer. As she faces the challenges of making the desert bloom, Clair comes to understand that family is not primarily birth ties but the bonds of the heart, and that people are like tributaries although they carry all the disaster that has gone before, "good comes through all the same." This novel has much to offer, including a balanced perspective on a controversial time in Mormon history, but its greatest gift is its wisdom about finding one's own path.
