Description
Based on an actual incident, a moving evocation of life in 1930s Virginia follows Wesley, a middle-aged black caretaker, and Elsa, a nanve county employee, as a buildup toward violence begins when Wesley refuses to part from his land. A first novel. Winner of the AWP/Thomas Dunne Books Award. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.
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In 1936, in a small town near Charlottesville, Virginia, an aging black caretaker and his sister shot dead a white sheriff acting on orders to turn them off their land. Bloodroot explores the circumstances leading up to the violent standoff as seen through the eyes of Elsa, a young county employee fresh out of school and filled with aspiration and illusion, and those of Wesley, the fifty-year old caretaker of a vanished family's estate.While Elsa struggles to retain her authority and self-respect, Wesley is haunted by past concessions and his sister's attachment to the land. When he stands in the way of a proposed turpentine plant by refusing the county's purchase offer, both Elsa and Wesley find themselves moving relentlessly toward an end neither wants to reach.
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