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Join Rabbit House Press to celebrate our latest release with a special Reading and Book Signing with author Stephanie Whetstone, who will share excerpts from her extraordinary debut novel, Deep Belly of the Earth. Stephanie is in Lexington from New York City to read from her book, answer questions about its subject and creation and sign your personal copies!Deep Belly of the Earth is about Ava Maynard who leaves her small coal mining town in Eastern Kentucky to make a life for herself and her son, Joshua, in the city. Her husband, Collis, has been laid off from his job as a miner, but he won’t leave the place they’ve always called home. When tragedy strikes, Ava is forced to return to the mountains to try to make sense of her family and the destruction in her hometown. She reluctantly slips back into her spot in this troubled world. At once comforted by the familiar beauty and grounding of the mountains and repulsed by the devastation of strip mining and drug culture, Ava relies on her deepest friendships and learns how to fight for the place she belongs to.
"Deep Belly of the Earth is a haunting, intimate novel about friendship, marriage, motherhood, the importance of nature, and the fierce pull of home. With lyrical prose and unflinching honesty, Stephanie Whetstone explores what it means to stay, what it costs to leave, and how far a woman will go to protect the people—and the place—she loves.
– Kyle Alvey, author of On Low Gap Road
“Deep Belly of the Earth takes the most basic elements of story—a time, a place, its people—and connects them with an effortless and reverential grace. Stephanie Whetstone has written a novel about two kinds of excavation: strip mining and its environmental impact on landscape and community, and the equally destructive hollowing-out of grief. Many novels aspire to being topical and timeless at once, but few do without sacrificing mystery and emotional momentum. Deep Belly of the Earth, like the place and people it depicts, is both hard-edged and humane.”
—Michael Parker, author of I Am the Light of This World
“Deep Belly of the Earth is about the “rise and fall of the mountains,” the rise and fall of a town and a way of life, the rise and fall of love. If you’ve never considered how “the swell of a mountain could be wiped away” or even if you happen to be quite familiar with that flattening of land – regardless of how much or how little you know about coal mining -- you will find this novel riveting. It’s full of insights and truth. The characters and their story will stay in your head and heart long after you turn the last page.”
-- Judy Goldman, author of The Rest of Our Lives
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Event Venue
Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 167 Lexington Green Cir, Lexington, KY 40503-3317, United States
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
