I am a sucker for a book about books, authors, and libraries.
Throw in a hauntingly eerie home perched on the side of a mountain, a modern
structure made of iron and glass that sits above a hard-scrabble town in the
Appalachians and I am hooked. The Barrowfields was that and more. A beautifully
written story of a man who leaves his home in the Appalachian Mountains to
attend college and write the great American novel only to return with a pregnant
wife and his unfinished tome. He moves his family into the magnificent house on
the hill where he continues to work on his obsession in the extensive library that
Phillip Lewis writes as a supporting character in The Barrowfields. This family
saga is told to us by his son Henry, who along with his sister Threnody, grows up
in this rambling home in awe of their brilliant father and cared for by their
beautiful and carefree mother until a
family tragedy occurs that changes the trajectory of all their lives. Son Henry leaves home, as his father did, only
to return after earning a law degree, as his father did, to solve the mystery
of the family and to return to the home and sister he abandoned. This was a beautifully lyrical debut that will leave you wanting more from Phillip Lewis.
