Groundskeeping: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel

· Vintage
4.0
2 reviews
Ebook
336
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • An indelible love story about two very different people navigating the entanglements of class and identity and coming of age in an America coming apart at the seams—this is "an extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations" (Ann Patchett, best-selling author of The Dutch House).

In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course.

Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks—a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma—who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants—struggles to understand Owen’s fraught relationship with family and home.

Exquisitely written; expertly crafted; dazzling in its precision, restraint, and depth of feeling, Groundskeeping is a novel of haunting power and grace from a prodigiously gifted young writer.

Ratings and reviews

4.0
2 reviews
Nicole Dunton
April 23, 2023
This book was okay. I wasn't really in love with it. I also feel like it slogged on in many places. That doesn't mean that the book isn't great. I'm sure there are many readers who absolutely love it. It just wasn’t really my thing. I really appreciated the social issues being shown. I also appreciated the realistic feel to it. It just didn't really go anywhere for me. One thing that felt really cool to me is there were parts that read like the book came from the sixties or seventies.
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About the author

LEE COLE was born and grew up in rural Kentucky. A recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he now lives in New York.

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