Bloodroot (review)

In William Wordsworth's famous poem "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," the speaker credits a pastoral scene explored in his youth for "that blessed mood, / In which the burthen of the mystery / In which the heavy and the weary weight / Of all this unintelligible world, / Is lightened." Amid the clamor of cities and the rush of the world's modernization, the speaker's memories of this secluded, bucolic scene provide him comfort and peace, acting as buffers against life's darker aspect.

Wordsworth's poem appears early in Tennessee writer Amy Greene's debut novel Bloodroot when the young Myra Lamb says that "it's like he's talking about here…He wrote this [poem] a few miles above a place in England…but I can tell he feels the same way as I do about Bloodroot Mountain." Bright and arresting, Myra sees in Wordsworth's lines her own almost mystical connection to her home, the titular Bloodroot Mountain. What is unintentionally claimed—or, perhaps, unconsciously anticipated—in Myra's declaration of affinity, is the therapeutic relationship between landscape and memory described in "Tintern Abbey."

Set on and around the fictional Bloodroot Mountain, the novel follows three generations of the Lamb family through the better part of the 20^th century. In spite of the ambitious historical scope, however, the novel is intimate and focused; more concerned with its characters than the grander gestures such a chronology could imply.

Divided into three sections and an epilogue—each with its own narrator or pair of narrators—the novel revolves around the enigmatic Myra Lamb and her tragic marriage to the abusive John Odom. In a clever formal decision, Greene structures the novel so that the majority of the information that we receive about Myra comes to us second hand; the multiple narrators, each drawn in their own particular orbit around the woman, supply the reader pieces of the sad story, but never a whole and satisfying one. The various narrators long to protect, possess, or understand themselves through Myra, and Greene's orchestration of their voices sustains a sense of mystery that propels Bloodroot through its different acts.

The novel's first, and strongest, section takes place almost entirely on Bloodroot Mountain. Narrated by Byrdie Lamb and Douglas Cotter (Myra's grandmother and childhood friend, respectively) this first third of the novel introduces the Lamb genealogy, the wild and mysterious mountain the family calls home, Myra's early life in the wilderness, and her eventual flight from Bloodroot Mountain with her husband, the abusive John Odom. Through Byrdie's narration especially, Greene showcases a wonderful ear for dialect and impressive ability to evoke a Southern mythology with grace and restraint. In her voice the considerable strengths of the novel seem distilled and naturally deployed.

Douglas's narration, too, does great service to the story. Doomed by a deep sentimental streak and an unrequited love, Douglas shares Myra's fascination with Bloodroot Mountain, and his attunement to wonder allows Greene a mouthpiece for some of her most beautiful passages. Describing a hike Douglas took with his fatherly neighbor, Mr. Barnett, Greene writes:

As we passed through dark patches of shade into clearings like rooms of light [Barnett] paused to touch ridges of fungus growing on bark, stopped to catch a moth and study its wings, bent to pick up an arrowhead. When I was with him I saw it too, how magical everything was

(47).

Reading this first section of the novel, one feels much like Douglas Cotter tagging along at Mr. Barnett's side. Green's prose glows as she describes the home she has created for her characters and the kinship they feel toward it. As Myra matures and leaves home, however, violence sneaks into the novel, and the narration takes on a much harsher tone.

The latter sections of Bloodroot take place away from the mountain in a series of confined and sorrowful spaces: foster homes, gray motels, and, eventually, an insane asylum. Greene's use of these spaces—most of...