The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree

Summary

Set in rural Arkansas in 1967, this evocative Southern novel, helmed by an unconventional and unforgettable heroine, draws readers into a visceral tale of secrets, desperate choices, and belonging.

Genevieve Charbonneau talks to ghosts and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she’s wandered throughout the South, working in a Louisiana circus and as a hootchy-kootch dancer in Texas. Now for the first time in a decade, she’s allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother’s Arkansas farmhouse, a place hallowed in her memory.

Disguised by years in exile and a name she found on a gravestone, Genevieve intends only to visit briefly and leave. But a chance meeting with a guilt-ridden young Vietnam veteran draws her into more unexpected connections. Her hard won independence inspires an abused woman and her daughters to find their own path to empowerment, and a hypocritical preacher is brought to a long-deserved reckoning.

With undertones of magical realism and dark humor, here is a powerful story of discovering—and sometimes rediscovering—one’s place in the world, and the unexpected challenges and gifts that present themselves along the way.

“This powerful narrative of belonging and the unexpected gifts and challenges of finding one’s place in the world is a mesmerizing read that will leave you pondering the interplay of fate and free will.”—Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author