Publisher Description
In the backwoods of Mississippi, a land of honeysuckle and grapevine, Jewel and her husband, Leston, are truly blessed; they have five fine children. When Brenda Kay is born in 1943, Jewel gives thanks for a healthy baby, last-born and most welcome.
Jewel is the story of how quickly a life can change; how, like lightning, an unforeseen event can set us on a course without reason or compass. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction.
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About Bret Lott
Bret Lott is the New York Times bestselling author of
over a dozen books. His work has appeared in, among other places, the Yale Review, the New
York Times, the Georgia Review, and in dozens of anthologies. Born in Los
Angeles, he received his BA in English from Cal State Long Beach in 1981, and
his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1984,
where he studied under James Baldwin. From 1986 to 2004 he was
writer-in-residence and professor of English at the College of Charleston,
leaving to take the position of editor and director of the journal the Southern
Review at Louisiana State University. Three years later, in the fall of 2007,
he returned to the College of Charleston and the job he most loves: teaching.
His has served as Fulbright Senior American Scholar and writer-in-residence to
Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel, spoken on Flannery O’Connor at the
White House, and is a member of the National Council on the Arts. He and his
wife, Melanie, live in Hanahan, South Carolina.