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A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • An indelible love story about two very different people navigating the entanglements of class and identity and coming of age in an America coming apart at the seams—this is "an extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations" (Ann Patchett, best-selling author of The Dutch House). In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course. Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks—a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma—who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants—struggles to understand Owen’s fraught relationship with family and home. Exquisitely written; expertly crafted; dazzling in its precision, restraint, and depth of feeling, Groundskeeping is a novel of haunting power and grace from a prodigiously gifted young writer.
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • An indelible love story about two very different people navigating the entanglements of class and identity and coming of age in an America coming apart at the seams—this is "an extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations" (Ann Patchett, best-selling author of The Dutch House). In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course. Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks—a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma—who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants—struggles to understand Owen’s fraught relationship with family and home. Exquisitely written; expertly crafted; dazzling in its precision, restraint, and depth of feeling, Groundskeeping is a novel of haunting power and grace from a prodigiously gifted young writer.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the cover
I’ve always had the same predicament. When I’m home, in Kentucky, all I want is to leave. When I’m away, I’m homesick for a place that never was.
This is what I told Alma the night we met.
A grad student had thrown a party, and we’d both gone. I don’t know how long we’d been talking or how the conversation started, but I’d seen her watching me. That’s why I went over. She was watching me like I might try to steal something from her.
What does that mean, a place that never was? she said.
All around us, people were talking in groups of twos and threes. It was a house way out in the country, decorated in the way you’d expect of a grad student—someone with an overdeveloped sense of irony and curation, who also happened to be broke. Foreign film posters. A lamp made from antlers with a buckskin shade. Those chili pepper Christmas lights. We were standing in the pink glow of a Wurlitzer jukebox. In her right hand, she held a Solo cup and an unlit cigarette. Her long denim skirt was of the kind I associated with Pentecostals. On the other side of the Wurlitzer stood a life-sized cardboard cutout of Walt Whitman—the one where he’s got his hat cocked and his fist on his hip. I kept catching sight of him in my periphery and thinking it was another person standing there, eavesdropping.
I don’t know what I’m talking about, I said. I’m a little drunk.
I can tell, she said. She took a sip of her drink and slipped her bra strap back onto her shoulder. She looked around for a moment, sort of bobbing her head to the music, which was not coming from the jukebox, but from some other mysterious source. People were dancing in an attention-seeking way. She let her eyes pass over them briefly, then she turned back to me and shook her hair. It was all tangled and cut short in a kind of bob. The sort of dark hair that seemed red in a certain light—the light from the Wurlitzer, for instance.
I hail from Virginia myself, she said, putting on a phony accent.
Do you ever feel a sense of suffocation when you think about it? Like, you start to hyperventilate and sweat, and next thing you know, you’re completely overcome with this fear that if you go home, you’ll be trapped there and never be able to leave?
The question seemed to amuse her. No, she said.
Yeah, me neither, I said.
She laughed at this. I grew up in DC basically, she said. So, not the real Virginia. This is my first time in Kentucky.
Just visiting?
Something like that. It’s not what I expected.
Did you expect all of us to play banjos and tie our pants with rope?
She laughed again. No, she said, I just thought it’d be—I don’t know. She gnawed on her lip and looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right word.
Trashier?
That isn’t the way I’d put it.
You go to the right places, you’ll find that. Where I grew up is like that.
And where is that?
I grew up in Melber, I said, but it’s not much more than a stop sign and a post office.
And it’s . . . under-resourced?
A flicker of memory: every Halloween of my childhood, a round bale of hay was soaked in kerosene, lit on fire, and rolled downhill on Melber’s main thoroughfare. People lined the street to watch as the bale jounced and tumbled, embers floating upward, bits of smoldering straw scattered in the road. I thought about this spectacle, and how no one ever explained to me why it was done, or for what purpose beyond...
About the Author-
LEE COLE was born and grew up in rural Kentucky. A recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he now lives in New York.
Reviews-
January 3, 2022 Cole’s nimble debut combines elements of Southern fiction, the campus novel, and youthful romance. Twenty-eight-year-old Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, returns to his native Kentucky in 2016 after being semi-homeless in Colorado. He takes a job as a groundskeeper at Ashby College, where he audits a writing workshop and meets Alma Hadzics, the daughter of Bosnian immigrants. Alma has already published a book of short stories and is at Ashby on a fellowship. Alma has a sort of boyfriend, and she and Owen drift into a relationship that slowly becomes more serious. Inevitably, he introduces her to his dysfunctional family and she introduces him to her prosperous mother and father. Owen’s uncle Cort is a MAGA-lover, and Alma’s parents always have MSNBC on. In the end, it’s not politics that threatens to derail Owen and Alma’s romance but fealty to their own professional aspirations as Owen’s literary career begins to take off. Cole fills his novel with a gallery of fascinating supporting characters such as Owen’s conspiracy theorist coworker Rando; Owen’s grandfather, a WWII vet who keeps a VHS collection of classic westerns; and Alma’s Springsteen-loving father. And though Owen makes some questionable choices, he and Alma make for an odd couple worth rooting for. In the end, this is the strongest story about young writers in love since Andrew Martin’s Early Work.
Returning to his hometown in Kentucky, Owen Callahan lands a job working days as a groundskeeper for a private college and sleeps at night in the basement of his grandfather's house. A benefit is he can take a writing class; he wants to get his life back on track to become a writer. He meets Alma, another aspiring writer, at a party. They are attracted to each other, finally taking their relationship to the next step of meeting the families where opposing histories of family, class, religion, politics, privilege, and poverty poke holes in their relationship, causing the two young lovers to drift apart. Michael Crouch reads each part of this debut with great skill. Owen, who has the slightest of northern Kentucky accents, is distinctive compared with his family members who never left the area, retaining a thicker regional sound. Crouch mirrors similar voicings for Harvard grad and well-bred Alma and her parents, both highly educated immigrants from Bosnia whose English sounds learned. VERDICT Their union is "gone with the wind" when two lovers realize that the things they hold dearest don't align in this fascinating audio production of Cole's debut novel.--Stephanie Bange
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Love and its complexities--familial, romantic, geographical--are the backbone of this excellent audiobook. As Owen leads us through his time as groundskeeper at a Kentucky college, his days are punctuated by his budding romance with visiting author Alma and his entry into the creative writing program. Narrator Michael Crouch provides distinct vocal shifts as he portrays entire personalities with his thoughtful character development. He expertly renders secondary characters like Pop and Rando, and his narrative style is approachable throughout. Heartfelt moments are balanced with hilarious ones, and Crouch does not miss a beat. The pace and production are stellar, and the composition of the work is beautifully suited to the audio format. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
