Juniper Tree Burning: A Novel

(Paperback)

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This masterful debut is an inventive, magnetic exploration of identity and memory amidst the vast western landscape: the first novel to capture the unadulterated legacy of the 1960s counterculture as it is lived three decades later. Juniper Tree Burning hates her name. It represents all she despises: her hippie mother, Faith, and meandering father, Ray, who she can't possibly please; her sick baby brother, Sunny Boy Blue, who she can't possibly save; and the raw poverty of her parents' 'back to nature' New Mexican home. Juniper escapes them all, to turn herself into someone new: Jennie. Jennie becomes a fierce, intelligent woman who refuses to be trapped by anything or anyone, even her seemingly perfect new husband can't get too close. Then one night the police call - Sunny has leaped off a Seattle ferry. 'Abducting' her best friend, Jennie flees New Mexico for Seattle, retracing the final steps of her brother, and the same path travelled by generations of her family. Along the way, Jennie confronts the familial tapestry of betrayal and loss, stories she has rejected or embraced as she created her new self. Only by reconsidering this history can Jennie face her anger and grief, her guilt at her brother's suicide, and her own greatest challenge, accepting love.

Reviews

Janet Maslin The New York Times Passionate...vibrant...[written] with rich, rueful, hard-won wisdom...[a] big, fiery howl of a book...powerful. Mark Rozzo Los Angeles Times A passionate, sprawling debut...full of astonishments. Jenny Offill The Washington Post Long skillfully evokes the minefield of memory and loss that lies at the heart of every family. Deirdre Donahue USA Today Long is wildly gifted...The writing, which captures both rage and love, is remarkable...Few writers have captured so perfectly the bond between siblings. Michelle Vellucci People This lush first novel is part family drama, part fairy tale (Brothers Grimm, not Disney)...Entertaining but unflinching...it's an unsentimental song of grief and forgiveness. Bottom Line: Blaze of glory.

Author Bio

Goldberry Long is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a James Michener Fellowship, and a Hackney Literary Award for the Novel. A native New Mexican, she lives in northern California. This is her first novel.