{"id":176,"date":"2024-04-29T19:10:05","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T19:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/?p=176"},"modified":"2024-05-01T19:10:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T19:10:48","slug":"amy-greene-long-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/amy-greene-long-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy Greene, Long Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Yuneetah, Tennessee. This rural, hardscrabble community set in the 1930s in East Tennessee holds tightly to their rich history through a deep connection to the land. When the Tennessee Valley Authority plans to dam the river and flood the town of Yuneetah, the inhabitants are forced to relocate. Some go willingly, eager to aid East Tennessee\u2019s promise of \u201cprogression.\u201d Others, such as Annie Clyde Dodson, are not willing to part with their l<\/span>and so easily.<\/p>\n

Annie\u2019s connection to the farm and desire to pass it down to her daughter, Gracie, makes her unwilling to desert her beloved land. When Gracie disappears, the Dodson family must grapple with the truth of the people around them in order to find their child.<\/span>Amos, the labeled \u201cdrifter\u201d who has been a trouble-maker since his birth, is the last to see Gracie and her dog. After returning to Yuneetah before the flooding, Amos vanishes just as mysteriously after Gracie\u2019s disappearance. Annie is certain of his guilt, but others are not quite as sure.<\/p>\n

Long Man <\/span><\/i>is Amy Greene\u2019s second novel. Greene tells a vivacious, heart-pulling story about a rural community facing the destruction of the land that ties them together. While the plot of the novel is Gracie\u2019s disappearance, the response and reaction of the community of Yuneetah takes center stage. Greene\u2019s writing is vibrant and personal. She creates a tale of raw, human reactions that pull at the reader\u2019s emotions to show the impact of a home-wrecking historical occurrence on a fictional group people based on a real event.<\/span><\/p>\n

Long Man <\/span><\/i>falls under the category of literary fiction, with some elements of mystery. In the novel, Greene creates a story about the lives of people connected to a real historical event. The main event in <\/span>Long Man<\/span><\/i> is the disappearance of a young girl. However, this mystery doesn\u2019t feel like it’s the point of the book. The novel focuses more on painting a picture of a group of people tied together by land, than the intricate details of Gracie\u2019s disappearance. Greene uses this tragedy to weave together a broken community by uncovering the stories and emotions of Yuneetah. Through the Dodson tragedy, the characters address familial betrayal, lost love, and broken relationships, ultimately allowing them to heal and remain united despite the loss of their home.<\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoyed Amy Greene\u2019s <\/span>Long Man<\/span><\/i>, but felt that the book read a little slow. Greene\u2019s description of the Appalachian setting and emotional rawness of the characters is beautiful, but felt slightly dragged out. As I read the beginning of the book, I pushed through mediocre dialogue and long descriptions. The book began to pick up the pace with the disappearance of Gracie and the subsequent investigations and accusations. However, the plot built up to a less-than-satisfactory conclusion of the mystery. My immediate reaction after finishing <\/span>Long Man <\/span><\/i>was disappointment. My perspective changed after I meditated on the themes of the novel and I realized that the conclusion of the mystery was not the central focus of the novel. Rather, Greene uses the elements of mystery to show how a broken community becomes slightly more whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are looking for a thrilling mystery book, you\u2019ll be disappointed. If you want a story about a close-knit community that rallies together to save a child, while simultaneously dealing with past hurt and lost love, keep reading.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Yuneetah, Tennessee. This rural, hardscrabble community set in the 1930s in East Tennessee holds tightly to their rich history through a deep connection to the land. When the Tennessee Valley Authority plans to dam the river and flood the town of Yuneetah, the inhabitants are forced to relocate. Some go willingly, eager to … Continue reading Amy Greene, Long Man<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4994,"featured_media":198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[20,52,12,5],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-southern-crime","category-spring-24","tag-amy-greene","tag-grit-lit","tag-historical-fiction","tag-literary-fiction"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2426\/2024\/04\/Long-Man-e1714056672264.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}