Digging Out edition by Katherine Leiner Literature Fiction eBooks
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Set against the backdrop of the magnificent Welsh landscape, this is a haunting, inspiring, and heart-lifting novel of loss, family reconciliation, and the healing power of love...
When she was eight years old, Alys Davies survived a tragedy in the small Welsh town where she was born. It shattered the village with guilt and stunning disbelief and destroyed her family. Each sought their own private and devastating-escape. For Alys it was to flee to the United States where, far away from the memories, she could rebuild her life, realize her budding career as a poet, and marry. Now, a new tragedy unfolds in Alys's life, forcing her to face her demons. Grieving for her past, Alys decides to return to it. Step by step, she makes the long journey back home to Wales, to embrace the memories of all that she lost, and to finally open herself to love...
Digging Out edition by Katherine Leiner Literature Fiction eBooks
I have never been moved to tears so many times in a book before. Beautiful, emotional, thoughtful, an incredible attention to detail. I look forward to the author's next book.Product details
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Digging Out edition by Katherine Leiner Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
I was deeply moved by Katherine Leiner's debut novel about a woman who ultimately triumphs over fear and loss. As a young girl in Wales Alys Davies is one of a handful of survivors of a tragic accident that claims the lives of hundreds of children. As a mature woman, still burdened by memories, she struggles to live fully, emotionally, with an open heart. I was drawn into Alys's story from the opening pages. The style of the novel, contrasting the lyricism of the Welsh past with the halting struggles toward 'breath' of the present, is particularly effective. I highly recommend this book.
Beautifully written tale of tragedy and growth. I was impressed at the author's ability to make me feel anger, relief, sadness and happiness. I also enjoyed seeing the main character grow throughout her tragedy and painful experiences. I really enjoyed this book as well as the setting in Wales. Can be a tad depressing if you aren't in the mood for heavy topics and tragedy.
Alys Davies' soul became buried under tons of coal in a Welsh Three Mile Island-type disaster, a historical event rendered brilliantly in Katherine Leiner's debut novel of love, loss, and going home again. Alys' future is hardly more certain than her past. She must face Evan, the man she abandoned for the United States, and confront at last the complex web of family, duty, love, loyalty, and shame. It's no easy task, and Alys seems to have lived a life of denial, at least in pop psychology terms. But the grieving that she experiences over the tearing apart of her family eventually surfaces, layer by layer of loamy Welsh soil, until the hard coal of home truths becomes a diamond of redemption. Leiner's prose sparkles with multiple facets, and her characters are no less dimensional.
In 1966, in Aberfan, Wales, an unthinkable disaster struck a tip slide devastated the town, burying houses, schools, farms and people. 116 children were killed, creating an intolerable void in the lives of all who inhabited the small mining town. Author Katherine Leiner, a teenager at the time of the tragedy, joined the world in communal grief over the tremendous loss. The real-life story of the disaster haunted Leiner her entire life.
Out of that disaster was born the character Alys Davies. Using Aberfan's great misfortune as a backdrop, Leiner wrote DIGGING OUT, a story about Alys Davies, a child who survived being buried by the mudslide, only to find herself buried alive in so many other ways later in life.
Alys is one of only a handful of children who are pulled out alive from the mire that covered the town. She struggles for months, even years, after the event to physically and psychologically recover from the loss of her best friend and a large percentage of the town. In the aftermath, the entire community suffers. Her father, held responsible by many of the townsfolk, turns to alcohol to quell his personal demons. Her mother retreats inward, becoming more and more aloof from her children. As neighbors, family and friends try to come to grips with their suffocation, Alys, too, finds her world becoming narrower. One young man, Evan, befriends her, falls in love with her and supports her throughout. He becomes her raison d'etre, and yet, somehow, this isn't enough for her.
Alys is the walking wounded and seeks escape as the only means to rise above the emotional muck that is keeping her --- and all those around her --- down. Still a teen, she follows her older sister to the United States, where she eventually marries, starts a family and forges a career as a poet. Thirty years pass and it takes another family tragedy to make Alys realize that changing geography never truly helped her dig out from under her past. And, in fact, she has only managed to bury herself all over again by ignoring the past and even ignoring the truth that is her present.
Leiner's language is beautiful and powerful. One cannot help but feel swallowed up from the very beginning by the overwhelming loss experienced by all the main characters. There is an oppression and sadness in Aberfan that Leiner's evocative writing brings right to the surface of the story and maintains throughout all the flashback scenes. And, conversely, when Alys returns home finally to face her parents and the town, the words on the page open up, as if Moses just parted the waters. The release is as refreshing as the mudslide was suffocating. In DIGGING OUT, Leiner reminds us that loss, to whatever degree, is an integral part of life, and to survive it one has to learn how to swim, how to keep one's head above the muddy waters.
Leiner's debut novel has me looking forward to reading her future work. Clearly she is an author I want to keep my eye on. I think you will want to too.
--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara
I liked the plot summary I'd read and the fact that it was based on a true story. Leiner's story describes an area I love and know well, so I was looking forward to that aspect. The attractive cover of the book appealed as well, and included interest-piquing praise on the back cover. So when I eagerly dove into this book, I was fully expecting to love it. Not by a long shot! I found her writing cliched and self-conscious. The text had grammatical and other errors that were distracting and unprofessional. The book has the hook of an interesting story line, which is why I'm giving it 2 stars, but it's poorly executed and needs an editor. It made me wonder whether Leiner's writing strengths perhaps lie in her other areas of nonfiction and children's fiction, because this debut adult novel was a big disappointment for me.
Life is a series of survival tests, Alys Davis learned early on as a child in Wales. A landslide when she was a child left her wheelchair bound for months, and she was the lucky one. Many other children were less fortunate, and lost their lives. Even when the pain left her limbs, she spent years enduring the glares of those who lost children when she lived. Then, she met Evan, and found love in his arms; but had to leave when she learned she was pregnant.
The years passed, and once again she found love, this time in America with a composer. He raised her son as his own, and gave her a daughter. She only learned of his lies after his sudden death. It is only the first death she will have to cope with; her own father's illness takes her back to Wales, and Evan. Alys must face the past to find her future.
** Ordinary life is filled with dramas that seem small unless you are in the middle of them. Alys' is one too familiar, albeit extraordinary, as are all crises. Ms Leiner's novel is so real that you probably have only to look in the mirror to know someone who has experienced the like. **
Reviewed by Amanda Killgore.
I have never been moved to tears so many times in a book before. Beautiful, emotional, thoughtful, an incredible attention to detail. I look forward to the author's next book.
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