Book Teaser Tuesday - Eli the Good

My book selection for this week's Teaser Tuesday is set in familiar territory, eastern Kentucky where I grew up. I recognize the language, the people, and what they value as Silas House describes in Eli the Good. House himself still lives in that region and set his other award winning novels Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves, and The Coal Tattoo in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

Mis B over at Should be Reading is host for this weekly book meme which attracts over a 100 readers each week. Playing is simple and open to all:

--Open your current read to a random page (I cheat a bit on this);
--share two "teaser" sentences from somewhere on the page, watching out for spoilers;
--give the book title, author, and perhaps a brief synopsis, so other players can decide if they want to add your selection to their TBR lists;
--post your link in the comments on Miz B's webpage and check out other players' links.



Eli the Good
by Silas House

"We were not a family who went to church much--both my parents believed that God could best be served by being the best people they could and treating everyone right and being thankful for all they had--so my guilt was not the kind that is created or fostered. I was simply made that way: a boy who cared too deeply for everything and therefore felt that any wrong in the world was partly my fault." pp. 81-2


Synopsis from the book jacket: "Girls line up on lawn chairs in pursuit of the perfect tan. Bob Seger growls from a transistor radio. And bicentennial fireworks blaze across the sky. Yet for nature-loving Eli Book, the summer that should have been the best of times is filled with terrible secrets. His beautiful, but distant, mother is caught between his father, a traumatized war veteran, and his aunt, a former war protester who has come to live with them. His beloved but wild older sister is struggling with her own painful discoveries.. And his best friend Edie, the only person with whom he can still be himself, turns inward when her parents split up. Surrounded by those he loves, watching from the sidelines while they begin to tear themselves and one another apart, Eli becomes swept up in the current of conflict and takes his first steps toward truth-telling and adulthood."

Now if this look inside Eli the Good has made you curious about either the book or the author, here's a video of House reading from the book and explaining some of the story background. The reading is accompanied by House's friend and fellow musician, Ben Sollee. House's voice takes me back to my childhood.