Thirsty
Author: Kristen Bair O’Keeffe
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Swallow Press (September 29, 2009)
Synposis:
In 1883, Klara Bozic arrives in the New World ready to start a new life with her new husband. She quickly learns that her new life in the Pennsylvania steel town of Thirsty is very much like her old life of beatings, isolation, and poverty. For forty years she endures with the help of a few misfit friends she makes: her fun-loving neighbor Katherine Zupanovic; BenJo, the only black man in Thirsty to have his own shop; and Old Man Rupert, the town drunk. Only when her daughter enters a similar marriage punctuated by pain and terror does Klara resolve to free herself, her daughter, and her granddaughters from this life sentence of brutality and find peace.
Review:
Because I come from a Pennsylvania coal mining area that mirrors the Pennsylvania steel town of O’Keeffe’s Thirsty it felt like a familiar tale to me. But for most readers, Thirsty will feel like jumping into a foreign world. Her descriptions of the steel workers, their women, the company towns are as vivid(and accurate) as photographs. More important are the novel’s portrayal of emotions—both the obvious ones and the confusing ones hidden from the world, and sometimes even the person feeling them. I will never forget the tightly controlled fear in the scenes of the women walking to the steel yard to learn which husband has been killed or maimed. Although the book does deal with dark subjects, O’Keeffe punctuated the story with scenes of great beauty and surprise such as the lavender bath, the butterfly cloud, the new hairdo. I wanted to read those pages over and over again, sink into the words. O’Keeffe skillfully balances joy and sadness in a book that could have easily tilted to become all about despair. I think readers will enjoy this book as they recognize the survivor in themselves in the main character of Klara.
You can read Chapter One of Thirsty on Kristin Bair O’Keeffe’s website.
You can view the Thirsty book Trailer here.