Advance praise for Janna McMahan and Calling Home
“What a lovely, vivid, immediate novel Janna McMahan has written! Calling Home will make you want to call your mother, lock up your children, and find—or hold tight to—the love of your life. This novel will delight and transport all who read it.”
—Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author of
What Matters Most
“Calling Home is a lovely book. It will resonate with everyone who ever loved, left or returned to a family—and in a way that’s all of us. Janna speaks to us in a strong, original voice. I hope we hear a lot more of it.”
—Anne Rivers Siddons, New York Times bestselling author
“In Calling Home, Janna McMahan tells the heartfelt story of the Lemmons family: a sister and brother struggling toward adulthood, a father and mother whose marriage is on the brink of failure, and the complex emotions that bind them through tragedy and loss. From the very first page, McMahan carries the reader into another world. Her lushly detailed landscape in rural Kentucky is a visual treat, and the voices of her finely drawn characters will live on in your heart. Told with compassion and sensitivity, McMahan has written a memorable story that is a true pleasure to read.”
—Katherine Davis, author of Capturing Paris
Please turn the page for more advance praise!
“Calling Home is a gritty, down home, contemporary and very real novel. Janna McMahan is a writer who knows how to get out of the way and let the story rip. Each vibrant, well-developed character’s voice rings true. McMahan presents the struggles of the working poor and the small farmer, the aspirations of parents for their children, the passions and problems of family life. She has a special gift for dialogue. This beautifully written, heartbreakingly realistic novel is a page-turner of the first magnitude.”
—Lee Smith, New York Times bestselling author of
On Agate Hill and The Last Girls
“Calling Home is the story of the pains and growth and dreams of a family, and the pains and growth and dreams of the young. Wherever the reader looks, in the most unexpected places, they will find a part of themselves. The details are so real they make you shiver. This is the story of the search for the true meaning of family, the home that always calls us forward, and back.”
—Robert Morgan, New York Times bestselling author of
Gap Creek and Brave Enemies
“Calling Home is a beautifully wrought novel populated by a vivid cast of characters who are still haunting me many months after having read the book. Janna McMahan is a natural voice who gracefully walks that tightrope of being both literary and commercial. In economical yet lyrical prose, she takes us completely into the lives of these people and their small town, presenting this world with authenticity and dignity. I absolutely loved this book and will carry it with me for a long time.”
—Silas House, author of Clay’s Quilt and
A Parchment of Leaves
Calling Home
JANNA MCMAHAN
KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Acknowledgments
It is a remarkable and extended journey from the initial impulse to write a novel to seeing your words offered up for sale. Fortunate writers have people who support them in their efforts.
I could not have achieved this goal without the artistic understanding and encouragement of my husband, Mark Cotterill. Not once has he said anything other than, “I know you can do it.” Thank you, Mark.
I owe gratitude to my many friends who eagerly read and thoughtfully commented on my novel throughout its creation. Particular thanks go to Jeffrey Day, Tracy Zampaglione, Nona Martin Stuck, Laura Grooms, Robin Riebold, Carolyn Mitchell, Monica Francis, Dr. Laura Basile, Jill Todd, Deirdre Mardon, Mark Spurling, and my mother, Edith McMahan.
Great thanks also to my most talented agent, Katherine Fausset of Curtis Brown, Ltd., who immediately believed in this story and worked swiftly to see it published.
My sincere appreciation goes to my editor, John Scognamiglio, for his insightful editorial suggestions. Thank you for making me feel at home at Kensington.
Finally, I’m always inspired by the artistic camaraderie and sense of community at the Appalachian Writers Workshop. To all my writer-friends who gather each summer in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, thanks for letting me be one of you.
If you love somebody, set them free.
—Author undetermined
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
A READING GROUP GUIDE
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1
The window gave a couple of inches. Virginia, poised on a cinder block, put her hand against the bottom of the sash and shoved again. Paint fractured and fluttered down as the frame broke loose and slid up. The reek of nicotine tinged with perfume seeped over her, a sour contrast to the clean air outside.
It was a vivid day. The sky seemed close as Kentucky skies can, as if you could just reach out and touch the pale smear of clouds. Virginia squinted into the dark interior. She could see it was a bedroom, as she had anticipated. Not hard to figure out where things were in these rectangular brick boxes. People had started trading tall breezy farmhouses for the central air of squat ranches with hardly enough room to make up a bed and no kitchen big enough to have a family meal.
She hoisted herself up onto the ledge. Her pants snagged on rough brick and ripped. She stopped, balanced on her stomach, half in, half out of the window, to inspect the dirty, thin streaks of blood where her forearms had scraped the window ledge.
She hadn’t expected to have to go to so much