The Clayfields: A Novel in Stories
In The Clayfields, Elise Gregory's powerful debut, the lives of three women are threaded together through the changing backdrops of farming communities in the twenty-first century. Where country churches are closing and old man bars are turning into wineries, an eclectic mix of characters must decide to evolve with new forces or leave their settler roots for new lives.
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"Elise Gregory's novel in stories, The Clayfields, made me feel like I was part of a Wisconsin farming community. The novel is layered with both the complexity and simplicity of farming life, the danger and the beauty. It helps us understand what hard work is and what it means to those who do it. This novel is layered with emotional tension, tied to the people and the land and animals they care for and work. The language is both simple and poetic, the stories compelling and linked and revealing more with each season that passes. I am in awe with Gregory's ability to tell a good story and make me want to be there with them, standing in the manure, all that comes with it. I wanted to know these people. They felt as real to me as anyone I know. A beautiful, beautiful book."
-Laura Stott, author of Blue Nude Migration and In the Museum of Coming and Going
"A lush, evocative, and beautiful book. In prose both lyrical and precise, Elise Gregory introduces us to an upper Midwestern community that cultivates a host of complicated and interconnected relationships between a cast of unforgettable characters, all of whom are authentically rendered with disarming clarity, while set against striking locales and landscapes. From bluffs perched over farmland, to the local tavern, to potlucks, to milking goats, to harvesting crops, to wandering cornfields at night, The Clayfields is a sensual and heartfelt debut."
-Keith Lesmeister, author of We Could Have Been Happy Here
"Elise Gregory beautifully captures the heartbeat of rural Wisconsin life, where news travels fast, beer is served in pitchers, and bakers vie for ribbons at the county fair pie contest. But there's enough space even in the smallest of towns to hide family history and secrets, both of which unravel with the rhythm of Wisconsin's seasons. The Clayfields is charming, poignant and thought-provoking."
-Shelley Tougas, author of Laura Ingalls is Ruining My Life, A Patron Saint for Junior Bridesmaids, Lily and That Guy, and Finders Keepers
"The Clayfields is a fully imagined novel in stories driven by lunar cycles of growth and decay, grief and joy, birth and death, waiting and renewal-not to mention goats and milk and cheese and corn and love and blueberries and memory and pie and everything else that sustain us. Elise Gregory has brought a world to life in this beautiful, engaging book."
-Samuel Ligon, author of Wonderland, Among the Dead and Dreaming, Drift and Swerve, and Safe in Heaven Dead
"Elise Gregory's novel-in-stories, The Clayfields, is an utterly absorbing, charming, and original work. Its focus on family, food, farming, and all the generational disjunctions and conflicts of Midwestern agrarian life today is so exactly rendered and compellingly nuanced the reader ends up feeling like part of the family and its larger community. One warning: you may find yourself getting hungry more often than not as you read!"
-Gregory Spatz, author of Inukshuk and What Could Be Saved
