Ingersoll finds a home for the infant with local woman Dixie Clay Holliver, unaware that she’s the best bootlegger in the county and has many tender and consequential secrets of her own. |
| 1927 Flood Photograph Collection |
The setting and the storms become just as important as the characters and the story in this novel by the husband and wife team of Franklin and Fennelly. They’ve done a fantastic job of bringing multiple elements together to form a cohesive whole.
Dixie Clay is a realistically written female in that she is like every female I know. She’s strong and self-sufficient and doesn’t need a man to complete her. The fact that she might find a partner to complement her is a plus, but I definitely wouldn’t slap a romance sticker on this novel. The other characters are just as interesting but you’ll have to read the book to find out more about the moonshiners, the saboteurs, and the team of federal agents that visit Hobnob, Mississippi.
The Tilted World is a remarkable story set in a remarkable time. I highly recommend it.
Beth Ann Fennelly has won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists, as well as a Fulbright grant to travel to Brazil. Her honors include the Kenyon Review Prize and three inclusions in The Best American Poetry. She has published three volumes of poetry as well as a work of nonfiction, Great with Child. She directs the University of Mississippi’s MFA program, where she was named the 2011 Outstanding Teacher of the Year.
The Relentless Reader 