A sweeping and emotional debut from a dazzling new voice – for fans of The Paper Palace, The Dutch House and Betty.

Coming of age in 1940s England, Alice’s life is thrown into chaos under the shadow of the war. Forced to let go of her hopes and dreams, she finds herself uprooted to America and a life she never could have imagined. 

Decades later, it is the 1990s and Alice’s granddaughter Marnie is living out of a worn-out Chevy Nova, running heroin and cocaine along the New England coastline.

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Yet she carries with her memories of a nurtured childhood in hardscrabble Rhode Island, where all the disappointments of her young parents were eclipsed by her grandmother’s love.

Spanning six decades and two continents, from the shores of WWII England to the underside of 1990s America, JUNCTION OF EARTH AND SKY unfolds – in multiple timelines – the enduring bond of grandmother and granddaughter, plagued by the past but determined to find their place in the world against all the odds.

My Review

What a heartbreaking story! It made me sad, it made me cry and it made me angry. Never angry at Alice, whose life was changed forever when she was evacuated during the second world war, or at Marnie whose drug habit and desperation are what open the story. But mainly at Denise, married to Alice’s dreadful son Sonny, whose behaviour is so awful I wanted to scream at her.

Her drinking and irresponsibility result in Alice becoming Marnie’s main carer. Some of the things that Sonny and Denise do without giving a thought to Marnie make you want to cry out in horror. There is a chapter when it’s Marnie’s birthday and she is having a sleepover. Denise promises to be there but after getting drunk and going off with some man she just met, she turns up plastered and causes a scene in front of all Marnie’s friends. My heart went out to poor little Marnie.

But Marnie always has the love of her grandmother to hold on to and no-one could love her more than Alice. So what has gone wrong when we first see her shooting up and selling drugs? And who is Jimmy. her ‘boyfriend’ and dealer?

But I think what upset me most was the lack of light in the darkness, the lack of hope in the desert of despair. It just kept going from bad to worse, and I prayed that it would change for Marnie at least. Even one of the more minor characters hits rock bottom at one point after his wife dies of cancer.

Yet it’s a brilliant book, especially as it’s a debut, but I really needed a break from all the sadness every now and again.

Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and to NetGalley for an ARC.

About the Author

Susan Buttenwieser is the author of the short story collection, We Were Lucky With the Rain (Four Way Books) and she has been awarded several fiction fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and she has taught creative writing in New York City schools, libraries, homeless shelters, juvenile detention facilities and at a women’s maximum-security prison. Junction of Earth and Sky is her first novel.