Rating: 
Summary: Buy -- don't steal -- this book
Review: "A Parchment of Leaves'' is a deceptively small book crammed with lots of big subjects: love, loyalty and prejudice, to name three. Set in the backwoods of early 20th century Kentucky, it creates a timeless world through elegant writing and evocative images. Silas House is a great young writer.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book!
Review: "A Parchment of Leaves" was highly recommended to me, and I now highly recommend to all that want a brilliantly written, poetic, and moving story about love, life, and family. It is a beautiful story and one of the best books I've read in my life. It had me mezmerized and drawn in. The characters are all so amazingly real.
Tough yet tender Vine, of Cherokee descent, is the main character who we want to get to know, and we do as the story progresses. Thought to be a "witchy woman" by the townsfolk, she is soon discovered by Saul Sullivan. They fall in love. Vine is one of the best characters written in the English language. She springs to life so vividly, and you want to see good things happen to her throughout her life at "God's Creek" with Saul, once the get married and settle down.
You have to read this masterpiece to find out for yourself.
Thank you, Silas House! You are a literary genuis!Keep reading, Eileen
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful book
Review: A beautifully written book by the author of CLAY'S QUILT, A PARCHMENT OF LEAVES takes us back to the early 1900's and the mountains of Appalachia. Vine, a young Cherokee girl, is rumored to have sent men to their graves by casting spells on them, for she is reputed to have special magical powers. The white men of the area fear her, especially as they pass her home on the way up the mountains to work on the construction of a mansion being built for a rich man named Tate Masters.
One day, Saul Sullivan and his brother Aaron are on their way up the mountain to help with the construction, and they pass Vine's house. Saul sees Vine for the first time and is instantly smitten, but she ignores him. A while later, she hears screams and finds that Aaron has been bitten by a poisonous snake. With her knowledge of Indian medicine, she saves his life.
Vine's life is changed forever. No longer does she live within the confines of the Cherokee community. The snakebite that nearly kills Aaron paves the way for Saul and Vine's courtship and soon they are married. She moves away from Redbud Camp and the Cherokee people, and moves in with her new husband and mother-in-law Esme, who live in a place called God's Creek.
Although Vine and Saul love each other, she misses her family terribly. However, her mother-in-law is very supportive of them, despite the rumors that have spread about Vine and her evil spells and the fact that she is a Cherokee. The two women become close, which helps to ease Vine's homesickness. She befriends the local midwife, Serena, who Saul mentions, is "crackerjack", but Vine ignores the comment and soon the two women are the closest of friends.
The people at God's Creek also accept Vine as part of their community. She learns their ways, sings their songs, dances their Irish jigs, and eats their food. She creates a loving home for her husband and new baby. But she is not completely happy. She finds that Saul is not as talkative as she would have liked, and is upset that he keeps things to himself, failing to open himself up to her.
At the same time, Aaron develops an obsession for Vine, which begins to scare her. She tries to ignore what is happening, and one day she finds that he is following her, hiding behind trees as he spies on her. She keeps this from Saul, knowing that he will never believe her and will always come to the defense of his family.
With Saul by her side, Vine feels protected, but one day he tells her that he has decided to temporarily move to a neighboring county to help with the war effort. It'll help bring in more money and give them the type of life they can only dream of. As soon as Saul leaves God's Creek, Aaron approaches Vine and professes his love for her, coming on so strong that she screams at him to leave. He disappears, leaving Esme and Vine to fend for themselves, only to return months later with a new wife, Aidia, who happens to physically resemble Vine.
With Aaron back in their lives with a new wife, Vine at first thinks that everything is going to be all right. But as Aidia begins to confide in Vine, she finds out that Aaron's return to God's Creek spells trouble. What later happens between Vine and Aaron is so horrible that no one learns the truth except Vine's closest friend Serena. With this weighing heavy on her mind, Vine finds life intolerable and dreads the day of Saul's return, knowing that she can never keep this secret from him.
Like a series of musical notes, Silas House creates in A PARCHMENT OF LEAVES a lyrical work of art as he tells the story of Vine and her life away from her Cherokee roots. The beauty of the story is found not only in the story itself, but also in the way that House lays down his words on paper and paints the world of early 20th century Appalachia. Although several important themes run through the story, I feel the most important component of this book is how House chose to tell his story, with a lot of imagery and descriptive passages that helped take me back to the home of his ancestors.
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Summary: Striking, vibrant and intense................
Review: A Parchment of Leaves is a beautifully woven story of life in the backwoods of Kentucky at the beginning of WWI. It is a story of a young white man who falls in love with a beautiful Cherokee girl. When they decide to marry, it is inevitable that she must leave her people and that they must go and make their life among his. Silas House tells their story of love, acceptance, prejudice, secrets and betrayals in an intricate manner, told in the voices of the people themselves. The ultimate search for love and forgiveness is a poignant tale. The decisions of which secrets are revealed and which ones are locked away and the friction that results is deftly revealed. The fear and the loneliness is so striking and intense, the pure love is so vibrant and the story so well imagined that this is a novel that stays in your heart.
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Summary: Should take every prize that's not nailed down!
Review: A Parchment of Leaves is a masterpiece--especially when one takes into account the fact that its author is a young man under thirty. There is no one writing fiction in the country today--and particularly in the South--who can outdo Silas House. He writes likes his heart's on fire. What a first-rate talent this young man has--and what a continent-sized heart, brimming over with love for his land and its people. I highly recommend this fine novel to anyone who wants a reading experience of the first order and to learn what is going on in literary fiction today (certainly by one of its major practitioners). A Parchment of Leaves is a compelling tour de force of the first magnitude. Immensely believable, breathtaking, and brilliant! Silas House is a sure thing to pick up a Pulitzer before he's forty! Charles Semones (windlover@copper.net) in Central Kentucky
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Summary: I read it on a "dare"
Review: And I hope to have more of those "dares" soon!
When I finish a book, I usually ask myself one question: "why do I feel so unsatisfied?" It seems, regardless of the wonder of the story, I usually come away with a feeling that I've been cheated of something magical, something that is supposed to confirm writing as an art.
I've FINALLY found satisfaction!
House's *Parchment of Leaves* is a story of the power of love that is as old as the hills where he sets his tales, but the language, the poetic prose he uses, makes his story more than a run-of-the-mill romance. This novel has meat. It is about life. The people are real; their circumstances are tragically so. He doesn't cheat. There are no cliches, nor are there cheap thrills for shock value's sake. The story moves via the art of language and characterization alone.
Exquisitely written.
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Summary: A writer moves from good to great
Review: Clay's Quilt was a good book, but this second effort by Silas House is amazing. His writing has matured and mellowed and the novel flows beautifully through the first decades of the 1900's. I am so impressed with the quality of this writing, the gorgeous descriptive passages and the authentic period dialects. Mr. House himself has a beautiful accent, and having heard him read several times on NPR, I found myself hearing the novel in his voice. It made it all that much more enjoyable. This is a fine novel, worthy of your hard earned dollars because it is one you will want to keep and reread. I highly recommend this talented author.
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Summary: Who are your people?
Review: Following his well-received Clay's Quilt, Silas House continues to explore the meaning of family, love, home, and belonging. Unlike many popular novels today, House is never heavy-handed in his themes. A Parchment of Leaves unfolds itself as naturally to the reader as own lives unfold to us. His clear prose is welcoming and contains an undercurrent of description that reveals the simple beauties of the landscape and human relationships. The characters of Vine and Serena are so three-dimensional that you'll convince yourself they're real people. Curl up with your quilt, a cup of hot chocolate, and this book. Recommended for all readers, not just devotees of Southern literature.
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Summary: Should have been a contender
Review: Here is a book that proves the National Book Awards rarely get it right. This book should have been at least nominated. It's the deepest, most powerful, and effective book of the year. Absolutely mesmerizing and beautiful. Silas House is a prose poet; every single word is chosen carefully and the result is often breath-taking.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous reading
Review: I couldn't put this book down. With each line I was drawn into the book and characters. I became a part of the mountain and these wonderful people. My hat is off to Silas House!
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