The Well And The Mine

(Paperback)

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Description

An assured, inspiring debut which demonstrates the power of the human spirit to give comfort in times of hardship.

In 1931 Carbon Hill, a small Alabama coal-mining town, nine-year-old Tess Moore watches from the darkness of her back porch as a strange woman lifts the cover off the family well and tosses a baby in without a word.

It is the height of the Depression; while Tess's father, Albert, performs backbreaking and dangerous work at the mine, her mother, Leta, makes do without meat on her table. But the family are luckier than most; the food they can grow on their plot of land has so far saved them from the crippling poverty and near-starvation that besets their neighbours. As Tess tries to unravel the mystery of the woman at the well, a portrait emerges of a family and a community struggling to survive the darkest of times. Resonant, vivid and clear-eyed in its portrayal of both the best and the worst of human nature, The Well and the Mine is a stunning novel about love, hope and the importance of doing the right thing.

Reviews

A quietly bold debut, full of heart.
"O, The Oprah Magazine"
When you close the book, youll miss these characters. But "The Well and the Mine" doesnt just give you characters wholl stay with youit gives you a whole world.
Fannie Flagg, author of "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Caf" and "Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man"
Gin Phillips has a remarkable ear for dialogue and a tenderhearted eye for detail; you can hear the pecans and hickory nuts falling from the trees and feel the stillness of a hot summer night. A whisper runs through the novelthe ghosts of places and people and luscious peach pies.
"Los Angeles Times"
A tight-knit miner's family struggles against poverty and racism in Phillips's evocative first novel, set in Depression-era Alabama. Throughout, she moves skillfully between the points of view...Phillips fully enters the lives of her honorable characters and brings them vibrantly to the page.
"Publishers Weekl

Author Bio

Gin Phillips lives in Birmingham, Alabama; THE WELL AND THE MINE was turned down by every mainstream US publisher to whom it was submitted and was eventually published by Hawthorne, a tiny press in Oregon. It went on to win the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize and the paperback rights went to Penguin US.