Cementville: A Novel

by Paulette Livers

Cementville has a breathtaking set up: 1969. A small Kentucky town, known only for its excellent bourbon and passable cement, direct from the factory that gives the town its name. The favored local sons of Cementville’s most prominent families all joined the National Guard hoping to avoid the draft and the killing fields of Vietnam. They were sent to combat anyway, and seven boys were killed in a single, horrific ambush.

The novel opens as the coffins are making their way home, along with one remaining survivor, the now-maimed town quarterback recently rescued from a Vietnamese prison camp. Yet the return of the bodies sets off something inside of the town itself —a sense of violence, a political reality, a gnawing unease with the future — and soon, new bodies start turning up around town, pushing the families of Cementville into further alienation and grief.
Presented as the Our Town of its time, we’ll meet Maureen, the young sister of a recently returned solider who attempts to document the strange changes going on in her town; Harlan O’Brien, a war hero just rescued from three years in a POW camp whose PTSD starts bending his mind in terrifying ways; Evelyn Slidell, the wealthy icon and oldest woman in town, a descendent of the its founders and no stranger to what grief does to a family; Giang Smith, the ‘war bride’ who flees the violence of Vietnam with her new American husband only to encounter echoes of it in her new home; and the notorious Ferguson clan, led by the violent Levon and his draft-dodging younger brother Byard, who carry a secret that could further tear the town apart.

With the Civil Rights Act only a few years old, a restless citizenry divided over the war, and the Women’s Movement sending tremors through established assumptions about family life, Cementville provides a microcosm of a society shedding the old order and learning how to live with grief — a situation with resonant echoes concerning war and community still being confronted today.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, War

304 pages, Hardcover

First published March 11, 2014

About the author

Paulette Livers is the author of the novel Cementville (Counterpoint Press), recipient of the Elle magazine Readers' Lettres Prize, and finalist for the Center for Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year, and the Kentucky Literary Award. Among recognitions for her work are fellowships and grants from the Artcroft Foundation, Aspen Writers Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, The MacDowell Colony, Ox-Bow Artist Residence, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for Creative Artists. While earning the MFA at University of Colorado, she taught creative writing, worked as a speechwriter to the Chancellor, and curated the University’s reading series. The recipient of the Meyerson Prize for Fiction at Southwest Review, her work has been honorably-mentioned or shortlisted for the International Bridport Prize, Lamar York Prize, Mosher Prize for Short Fiction, and Red Hen Press Short Story Award. Her stories and essays appear in many print and online journals.
Her publishing and visual arts career includes over 20 years as an art director and book designer for publishing companies around the US, and a varied freelance career serving the book and magazine industries, as well as companies and individuals in many fields. She is Creative Director at Mighty Sword Studio, specializing in fine book design, editing, and helping publishers, writers, and artists bring their work to the printed page.
Paulette teaches in workshops and presents on creative writing and publishing topics nationally, and is on the faculty at Story Studio Chicago. She is at work on a new novel. Please visit www.PauletteLivers.com for more information.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This falls somewhere between a 4 and a 5 so let's round on up. I was bombarded with characters at first trying to wrap my head around who was who. When I stepped back and saw each chapter like it's own short story I really started loving how the author presented the town and it's people. Hold out till the end for a nice shock. You won't have all your questions answered but it was not a distraction. I'm still thinking about the title and what it means to me as I read the story. I have a few theories but probably none are what the author intended. If you like dysfunction, small towns and the south give this one a try. Very well done, indeed!

[Heather Fineisen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paulette Livers opens her debut novel with the death of a group of young men in a National Guard Unit in Vietnam from the same small Kentucky town, Cementville. The aftermath and the social structure of the town reveals the relationships and a murder mystery. This could be any town, any time, any war. The hierarchy of the families, the secrets, and the complex relationships don't just exist in Livers' fictional 1969. The books strength is also it's weakness-- Characters. Memorable characters-a young girl recording the history of Cementville and her mentally damaged uncle, the wealthy Slidell Matriarch and her old black friend who lives on the other side of town, the bad seed white trash family- all lend unique yet relatable perspectives that elevate this novel. Unfortunately, the author adds a few incidental characters that weigh down the plot and in some cases, act as neon lights for plot points, ie the red shirt syndrome. Overall, an impressive debut that evokes familiarity in setting and emotion. An author to watch.

Provided by Publisher.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where I got the book: free e-copy provided by publisher on NetGalley. This review first appeared on the Historical Novel Society website and in the May 2014 issue of the Historical Novel Review.

This debut literary novel is set in 1969, in a small Kentucky town that produces cement and whiskey. A funeral cortege brings home seven dead Cementville soldiers, all members of the National Guard whose families had expected them to remain safe from the conflict in Vietnam, and one surviving, maimed hero. An eighth dead soldier is not part of the cortege; severed from the others by religious denomination and class divisions, his family must mourn him separately. Around these deaths form a number of stories reaching back into family histories and well-kept secrets of love, hatred and violence.

With a large cast of characters united variously by ties of kinship and community, this is a novel that rewards the reader who can keep its diverse threads straight in her mind. Beautifully written and sensitively executed, it weaves the Vietnam era deftly into the family stories and touches on the civil rights issues that still arouse strong feelings in Cementville’s population.

The novel’s even tone and its understated ending may not satisfy readers looking for the sense of completion a rounded-out story brings, but it should certainly gratify those who enjoy good prose and a complex interweaving of past and present. A promising debut.

[Geoff Wyss · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an impressive debut novel, one whose lyrical prose and closely observed ensemble of characters reveals the author's love for her subject matter. The book is both a (deep-looking) snapshot in time and a study in the disintegration of that moment. The novel is set in a small Kentucky town during the Vietnam War, a town receiving the bodies of six National Guard members killed in a single battle. Livers branches out from this central tragedy into the interconnected lives of the soldiers' families, lives that were already complicated, before the deaths, by the usual enmities of small-town life (heightened further here by Cementville's racial divisions and poverty). The war seems to pry the town open and inject its violence: the first murder in decades occurs shortly after the return of the soldiers' bodies.

The real interest, however--both the reader's and Livers's--is not the solving of the murder but the psychology of the town and the many extended character sketches that constitute its civic personality. The central character of the novel is the town itself. In its patient revelation of family histories and secrets, crimes and triumphs, Cementville will remind readers of Our Town.

This is a traditional novel in the best sense: unhurried, thoughtful, compassionate, and real.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cementville is rural America in disintegration. When William Slidell the town founder led his entourage: “The land was beautiful, if a bit hillier than the newcomers might have wished. Dense with woods and full of game. Rocky too, being a quilt of deposits from the ages, riddled with shale and limestone, petrified mussels, corals, and trilobites, the fossilized remains of sea creatures. Every square foot of alluvial bottomland they freed of stone yielded not just good farmland but the building blocks for walls to separate cows from crops, kitchen garden from a sheep or goat's unceasing appetite.” (p.58) Evelyn Slidell is now the aged matriarch of the town and she remembers this Old Cementville. Families like the Slidells, the Juells and the Fergusons had lived here for generations. Girls dated and married their childhood sweethearts. Wanda remembered the fabulous stories Poose (Johnny Knox Ferguson, her grandfather) told her about the surrounding hills, and the cold pure water bubbling up from the Kentucky limestone. Today, the cliffs are “...sheer limestone walls weeping rust-colored water from deep in the earth.” (p.1).

New Cementville was already in decline before this story opens. Clear-cutting has scarred the hills; erosion is finishing the job. Wanda and her mother survive on subsistence farming but the prized sheep they once raised for wool had to be sold off when Wanda's father, an alcoholic, died. The neighborhood called Colortown is now called Taylortown, but it is still impoverished. However, author Paulette Livers has chosen 1969 as the watershed moment. Seven bodies are being transported back to this town of only a thousand. (Many high schools are larger than that!) The dead are seven boys who joined the National Guard only to find their unit activated and shipped out to Vietnam. It is a day when the living return as well. Harlan O'Brien, former POW, will be greeted with a hero's welcome. Billy Juell, discharged early but not dishonorably, returns unheralded. Carl Juell, the same age as Harlan, is Billy's uncle, newly discharged from a mental institution where he resided for the past 15 years. Maria Louise Goin is returning to attend the funeral of her cousin Donnie Ray Goin. Byard Ferguson, a draft dodger according to town gossip, is returning to attend the funeral of his brother Denny. Denny was slow but he was drafted anyway, and killed on patrol.

A snapshot of this moment would reveal grieving parents betrayed by their government, the hollow bloviating of those who never suffered such loss, and returned soldiers who are like changelings, strangers inhabiting familiar bodies. Billy Juell is one of these. “Over the next few months, Maureen tried to decode the blurry blank spots ...whenever Billy was around. The words were the equivalent of, Glad you're home, but the nervous energy was, Who are you?” (p.168)

CEMENTVILLE is written in three sections. Each section opens with a prologue written in a second person plural voice. It's an unusual choice. The entire town speaks as one, as if in poetic chorus, before the narrative picks up the stories of individual tragedies, crimes and especially, secrets.

This is one of those books with dozens of characters, and most readers will want to sketch out the various family trees in order to keep the characters straight. This is particularly important because there is no single main character. Wanda Slidell, Maureen Juell, Maria Louise Goin, Evelyn Slidell and Harlan O'Brien are initially introduced in detail as connecting points to other characters, particularly the Ferguson children: Levon, Byard, Denny, Augrey and Tony. While this resonated as a story of a town in distress, I found this construction at odds with the narrative theme of murders and untold secrets. This is an unusual book. In many ways it's an antidote to "Our Town".

[Rita Dragonette · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Virtuosic Portrait of Grief
First novelists are often warned not to be too ambitious: keep your cast of characters limited and your story linear. Get your sea legs before you burst out with the story you were meant to tell. I’m so glad Paulette Livers ignored that advice and graced us instead with the audacious tour-de-force of Cementville. With a real-life incident as inspiration, she has told a unique story of the impact of the Vietnam War on a small Kentucky town where ridiculously—and ironically-- disproportional casualties cut an entire village to its emotional knees. Through an ingenious tapestry of eighteen points of view, and a mysterious series of murders, the reader follows the aftermath as it leeches through every resident, every level of society—where characters you think you understand reveal their souls and secrets as they rise up, fold, turn dark or endure. In the process, you understand the far-reaching and insidious repercussions of war, and that though there can be no escape, there can be enlightenment, resolution or, unbelievably, even further tragedy. I highly recommend this novel. The characters are vivid, the writing gorgeous, the desire for the writer’s next book intense.

[Lexie · Rating 5 out of 5]

~ Veterans of war: this story understands you. ~

Seven veterans of the Vietnam war -- most of them still teens -- return home to Cementville, Kentucky, in coffins. An eighth, the only survivor of the raid that killed his brothers in arms, rides shotgun in the lead hearse as the cortege rolls into town. He's been medalled -- he's called a hero. It's 1969, and Cementville, known for its cement plant and renowned for its bourbon, harbours just over a thousand souls. Everyone knows everyone else, or so they think, and drifters, wanderers, are looked at with a slant eye.

Seven sons dead; two intact. One with a shot-off leg, a clink over his heart, and a psyche full of napalm, and one who'd headed north, to Canada.

They all come home.

What happens?

...

Quotes:

~ She was sick to death of this edginess, the way the second hand of a clock seemed to sweep in slow motion around the inside of her skull, reminding her that time was passing and the world was passing and she was just here, here, here. Instead of winding down like a normal clock, she could feel springs inside her being coiled tighter.

~ Evelyn Slidell is not given to platitudes, knowing from experience that most of them are lies other people will tell you for their own comfort. She may be the town's ogress, but she is not a liar.

~ Katherine shuddered, actually had to rub her arms to get the goose bumps to go down, from the chill in his voice. It was Willis who taught her what unconditional love -- when truly lived -- felt like. And now he seemed to suffer a physical revulsion at the very thought of his own son.

~ Halden O'Brien sat, rigid as a man condemned, not by laws but by the jury crowding his tormented mind, a sentiment Alden conjured as he looked into the hooded eyes, the uncanted head rod straight. A line floated through Alden's mind, something from a half-remembered poem abou the dead in war being more alive than the living.

~ They wait for Billy to breathe in the air of home, the only thing that works to calm him.

~ "...He's suffered enough, sitting around here like a walnut hull, the insides of him picked clean. He didn't deserve this."

~ This may be the first, this moment of openness, when she really sees what has come home to her, a boy who is not yet a man but is already as broken as any man with decades behind him.

~ Surely there must have been a time when he was not poison. Poisoned.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who says nothing ever happens in a small town? There’s a lot going on in Cementville and it doesn’t all begin when seven coffins from Vietnam are returned to the small Kentucky town. Aside from being about war and its aftermath, Cementville, the novel, is also about small town life and how lives are shaped before birth. A Ferguson will always be a Ferguson, a Slidell always a Slidell. Expectations differ according to one’s last name. It’s difficult to break free, even when bound by tragedy.

Paulette Livers has written a compassionate book on the effects war has on its veterans and the families waiting on their return. There are no rules for either, no preparation. Those waiting have expectations those returning cannot meet. The returning soldiers have no expectations. The transition to “normal” life will not come easily (if at all) nor will it be quick. Katherine Juell asks, “What’s happened to us, Will? Maybe Maureen’s right. It’s as though this town has been invaded by something…” It has. Demons that have been there all along and are just now surfacing and demons set loose by war.

I knew there would be surprises in this book and especially at its conclusion, but not the ones that awaited me. An excellent book. I’m glad I somehow found it.

An inconsequential aside: I was fascinated by Augrey’s name and couldn’t figure out its origin. Augury?

[Snotchocheez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paulette Livers' first (but hopefully not her last) novel, Cementville, is a solid effort, though I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had maintained a conventional story arc, rather than being an elaborate set piece (describing a series of tragedies that befall a small Kentucky town during the Vietnam War, after seven National Guardsmen from the town, killed in an ambush in Vietnam, are sent back home). I really like Ms. Livers' writing style, though it took me a while to fall in sync with it (the first forty pages, wherein it seemed every one of Cementville's 1,000+ residents was going to be introduced, were particularly problematic). Once she established a rhythm though, and stuck with a select few main characters, Ms. Livers convinced me of her latent talent. This is a compelling look at how small towns in rural America (like Cementville, with very little going for it but a cement factory and a booze distillery) can be hit so disproportionally hard when a war breaks out.

(Not to be a nit-picker, but there were a few glaring errors that would have been avoided with more prudent fact-check editing; the most egregious of which: the {pivotal} penultimate scene involving a discussion of bungee jumping. Bungee jumping in 1969? Really? C'mon now.)

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this compelling portrait of a small Kentucky town, named for the cement works in its midst, Livers explores the impact of the loss of seven of its young men in an ambush in Vietnam. They had joined the National Guard hoping to avoid the draft but were sent to fight anyway, and only one survived. The arrival home of these dead young men has a profound and unsettling effect on the whole community and seems to unleash a wave of violence every bit as horrific as that in Vietnam. All the characters in this dark but lyrical novel are wounded in some way, and each has to find some path through their own particular trauma. It’s an atmospheric and evocative portrayal of 1960s America, when the war was having a profound effect not only on those sent to fight but on those left behind. A story of a grieving community, it’s an impressive and engaging debut novel exploring the physical and psychic wounds of war and violence, of secrets and betrayals and one which I recommend most highly.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

They always say, "Don't judge a book by it's cover." But that is the first thing that grabbed my attention about this book. Something about the cover and the way it was executed really pulled me in.

I have to give this book 5 stars because not only did it keep my attention throughout, it also had me laughing, crying, and gasping out loud. I loved the section where Death made an appearance and the twist at the end I never saw coming.

I would HIGHLY recommend this book to people. Wonderful job!

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read. A depth of characterization and knowledge of place unequaled. You will thank me.

[Julia Richerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really amazing. I agree w other reviews that each chapter almost stands a short story. Her writing is so beautiful and often very poetic. There are many characters and I wish I had done a family tree as I went along, for reference. But really the intertwining of the characters is so small town and such an effective writing technique for this book.
And it is so very KY in so many ways- very nuanced in that I think. Loved it.

[Virginia Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book about a small town and its residents and how they affected by the loss of many of their own during the Vietnam war.It definitely kept my interest.

[Ash · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I found the premise of this book very interesting simply because it wasn't the sort of thing I would pick up very often. The book promises to "provide a microcosm of a society shedding the old order and learning how to live with grief," and it most definitely succeeds at that.

Positives

- The writing style. The author's writing is very vibrant and drew me into the story from the very first page. I was able to really clearly picture the setting and characters and almost believe that they were real.

- The characters. The story is told through many different viewpoints that all eventually connect and left me with a sense of small town community where everybody knows everything about everybody. For such a short book, the characters have astounding depth.

- The setting. I was promised a small town in Kentucky, a little set in its ways, a little behind the times, and that's exactly what I got. I love the vibe of Southern towns in fiction and the town of Cementville definitely had that vibe. Even the writing sort of ambled along slowly, like life in Cementville did.

- The aspects of war. How a close-knit community reacts when they lose not one or two, but eight of their own men in combat they never should have seen. The two soldiers that return to Cementville - Lieutenant Harlan O'Brien and Billy Juell - are portrayed as having PTSD and I don't feel that it was whitewashed at all.

- The mystery. Admittedly, it only starts about a third of the way into the book, and it's not made to feel like it's very important in the whole scheme of things. And really, it isn't. But I did really enjoy the way it ended.

Negatives

- The pacing. It was a little slow for me, a little hard to pay attention to at times. However, it worked really well with the tone of the novel and didn't really detract from it much at all.

Overall

As a debut novel, I thought Cementville was fantastic, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of Paulette Livers in the future. A well-deserved five stars.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paulette Livers' Cementville has much to recommend it. The sense of place and time is present throughout. For example an important character reflects upon the city as an active part of place, and thus of Southern culture. From her point of view society makes particular standards for women and for men. These standards are part of civilized society. Even as gendered and class guidelines have been set out, deviation from these guidelines results in some type of punishment, at least they are shunned from the group in public. We see shunning in action in some of the treatment two "mismatched" young people are subjected to when they hold hands during a commemoration ceremony for the many dead soldiers from the town.
Are these young people just rude? One is a feminist from a good family. The other is a mechanic is a draft dodger whose family has the reputation of alcoholism, thievery, and the like. Never mind that he is a mechanic. What difference does it make that he has traveled from Canada for the funeral of a brother he lost, a brother who is part of that same group of soldiers being honored. Somehow his brother's name does not come up during the ceremony.

For me this type of character development and the clear explanation of the drama that emerges because of class distinction is the best of the book.

Less successful is the environmental theme and Livers' exploration of fracking. This latter section of the book is something of a tease for anyone who expected to read much about its impact on people in the present and the dangers it poses for the future.

Livers makes a clear point regarding the dangers fracking poses to the environment. Mostly the narrative energy of the novel seeks to point out that chasing after money is a dead end in itself. As long as this pursuit remains the ultimate goal in terms of society's definition of success, if we are not fracking we will allow some other blight on the land as socially acceptable as a means to the end. If this business helps even a few people move from poverty to the successful life.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cementville is a story that shows how war changes not just those who fight it, but the family and community. Two coffins are coming home with one survivor who has been wounded(a former quarterback rescued from a prison camp). Maureen is the teenager standing witness to everything as it crumbles. Lt. Harlan O'Brien is suffering PTSD (little understood back then) and with the war a terror burrows into the minds of the town, a deep fear for the future. Giang Smith left behind the horrors of Vietnam for a fresh start in America with her husband but not everything is apple pie and freedom when there are horrors of a new kind. There are many characters in this novel that are a window into how the war touched everyone. Oh and there is a killer set loose in a town that is already on edge and divided.
This was a time ripe with change. The dynamics of the family structure were changing with Women's Movement. The Civil Rights movement was still in it's early infancy. People were finding themselves divided on not just the war, but all of the changes taking place. It is a reminder that every generation has it's struggles in shaking off the old to be reborn in a new skin and just what it costs each of us.
Sometimes keeping track of all the characters and families was difficult but I found the Ferguson clan to be the fire in the novel. Draft dodging, violent, secretive- they kept the flames lit. There is a lot going on and to expect a happy story in a dark time is foolish of any reader. I enjoyed this novel for everything it explores. Suspicion is a scary beast, and could be a character in the novel. Small town poisoned by it's own fears and dying traditions, that is what the novel feeds on. I strangely enjoyed reading Cementville.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cementville is a small town in Kentucky. It was named for its now defunct cement plant and in the year 1969, the population is only 1,003. Eight young men from the town were sent to Vietnam and seven of them have just been returned in coffins. The eighth, football hero Harlan, who lost a leg in Vietnam and should return to a hero’s welcome, has instead returned to a town immersed in shock and grief.

The story is told from many viewpoints. There is young Maureen, Harlan’s little sister, who writes in her journal of her anguish and confusion while she tries to cope with Harlan’s PTSD. Maria Louise is a journalist in the city who returns to her home town to cover the story and finds herself falling in love when she least expects it. Giang Smith is a war bride who has fled the danger of Vietnam only to find a different kind of danger in Cementville. Wanda is a librarian who has been unable to leave her house for some time. While all those about her struggle to come to terms with the loss, she finds the strength to reconnect with her town. And elderly Evelyn, the wealthiest woman in town, who has her own share of secrets to keep.

This is a snapshot of a small town of the 1960’s which is being forced to change whether it is ready or not. Vietnam, Women’s Liberation and the Civil Rights Movement have impacted on this town and its people bringing political change and social upheaval. Life can never be the same again.

Livers has succeeded in bringing this town to life. The characters are written clearly and concisely. This is a story about what it means to be a hero, about how grief affects us all differently and how family grievances can be overcome through unexpected friendships and newly found respect.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1969, Cementville (aptly named for the cement plant that drove the local economy) was a town in decline. Its boys were off at war, some willingly and some unwillingly, and the production levels at the plant were slowing down. As the town quietly adjusted to a new way of living, the shocking deaths of seven of their own and the amputation of another lit a match under the already simmering tensions. First, there is the Ferguson family – a large brood known for their drunkenness, promiscuity, and domestic violence. Second, there are the questions surrounding the death of a homeless man several years prior that was presumably committed by Carl, who recently returned from an involuntary stay at a mental health facility. Lastly, there’s the inquisitive young Maureen, who learns more by listening in the background than asking questions directly

Together, these characters (and several others) tell the all-to-common story of how a small, close-knit town can be torn apart following a tragedy. But more importantly, it shines a light on the horrors of war and its aftermath. Although the town is reeling from their losses, it is the returning veterans that suffer the most. Trying to assimilate and suffering from PTSD, those who survived the war returned home only to begin a new one. Staving off curiosity, assumptions, and accusations, the veterans are forced to come home to a home that perhaps no longer exists.

For the full review, visit The Book Wheel.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent book! The author's writing style was lyrical and accurately portrays a small Kentucky town in 1969 after 7 men from the town are killed in the Vietnam War and many others returned from the war forever changed. It captures family and the lengths people go to for family. It accurately depicts PTSD and how family members deal with it.

This book was smart. The plot was perfectly paced in a way that made you want to keep reading. Livers wrote authentic, real characters that come to terms with the war, civil rights, and societal changes of the 60s in a accurate way. (Or how I imagine it to be, as I wasn't alive then!) I think this book captures the loss of innocence beautifully.

While reading this book, I kept thinking that the same themes could be written about war today. It's a story of any war. Its the story of coping with the very real fall out of war. I think that's what made this book so powerful as well. It is a story of 1969 or 2014.

There were a lot of characters, and that made it overwhelming and difficult at times to remember who was who and what they were doing and which family they belonged to and their role in the novel. But as you read further, it becomes less confusing. And more importantly, each character is essential to the story Livers is telling.

Overall, this was a terrific novel. It was beautiful. I cannot wait to read more from this author!

[Mary Hawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We feel them coming, the low vibration of their wheels, a dark convoy descending upon us, pitching north like a swarm lobbed from the fist of a spiteful deity.” The opening sentence of Paulette Livers’ debut novel Cementville draws the reader into the life of one small Kentucky town, beginning with the afternoon that the bodies of seven of its young men, killed in Vietnam on a single night, arrive home for burial. As the community struggles to cope with this unfathomable loss, it also tries to absorb returning veterans back into the torn fabric of town life, ignorant of how the trauma of war has irrevocably changed these men.

This fascinating novel is a drama of interconnected families, a reflection on the aftermath of war, and eventually a murder mystery, told from the perspectives of multiple characters. One of those characters is thirteen-year-old aspiring writer Maureen Juell, whose detailed but flawed observations of events around her provide moments of comic relief. Precocious Maureen has selected Dickens’ Bleak House as one of her summer reads. Like Dickens’ novel, Cementville tells the interwoven stories of richly imagined characters, some of whom are lost to the shadows, and some of whom find their way toward a future that is haunted but not consumed by grief. This is a compelling and wonderful read.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Cementville" might seem like an absurd name for a town, named after a cement plant, yet my own mother spent part of her childhood in a town called Concrete - so christened when the towns of Cement City and Baker merged in 1905.

So right off the bat I was drawn to the idea of a story set in a small town where the biggest thing happening is a declining cement factory. Cementville is a layered tale, with myriad characters whose individual stories are intertwined in the way that the lives of folks living in a small town can be.

What seems like an unbelievable premise - the death of 7 soldiers killed all at once in a firefight in Vietnam, is the true story which inspired this book, and provides the backdrop for the exploration of small town relationships and hidden sides of the heart. Livers' deft character development shows us the heart of nearly every one of the many characters that populate this story, making each one relatable despite their warts and difficulties.

While there were depictions of small town that are universal, there were also rich details that brought the reader straight to the heart of Kentucky and the American South.

I found the story hard to put down, and highly recommend.

[Marsella Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was uncomfortable to read, an era I was a teen in. It brought back all the turmoil and change that I felt at that time. Civil rights, the women's movement, Vietnam. We were a typical liberal, dysfunctional, middle-class family that was transferred from California to Florida for the Apollo Space Program. Astronauts, space flight and going to the moon were the focus of my family, it was a culture all it's own. I was insulated,but yet I felt all it's turbulence. Unfortunately for authors, I rate books based on how I like the story. This book captured the unease of a society that felt lost and at the brink of monumental change. Men, women, youth were all confused about their roles and where they fit. Graduating from high school and going out into the world was terrifying enough. This book had creepy layered over the social issues and it was bleak. I had to follow it with something light hearted. Does this book have value? Absolutely, particularly for those who didn't experience that time in our history, just not so much for me. Marsella

[Paula Schumm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Counterpoint for an advance copy of Cementville by Paulette Livers.
Cementville is a village in Kentucky that has been adversely affected by the Vietnam War. Seven men have just returned home in coffins. As the story unfolds, murdered bodies keep turning up. Whodunit? There are a couple of veterans with post traumatic stress disorder, a crazy man just released from the insane asylum, a violent alcoholic who beats his wife, a drifter, and a draft dodger home from Canada for his brother's funeral. Ms. Livers has created interesting characters who are bound together by family ties and secrets from long ago. I recommend this one.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was given an advanced copy of this book by Elle Magazine, but unfortunately I really have nothing good to say about this book. The story is of a tiny, depressed town in rural Kentucky that loses its favored sons to an ambush in Vietnam. This is subject matter I would never have chosen to read had it not sent been sent to me. The style is disjointed and impersonal, jumping to a different perspective in every chapter without much continuity nor a strong sense of time. I had no empathy for any of the characters, excepting those that wanted to get as far away from Cementville as possible.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I received Cementville from the author as a Goodreads giveaway. When I first started reading it took me a long time to tie all the characters together after all this is a story about a town. While reading, I was taken back to a time in my own youth growing up in small town. The author did a good job of showing us the pain of individual lives in a 1970's town after the war. This is a book that I will recommend to others and might read again myself.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took me a long time to get through this one...although the storyline should've been captivating, I found that I wasn't interested enough in the characters or their stories. The twist at the end seemed really out of context. I liked the description of the small town life in Appalacia, but the rest wasn't redeemable.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very smart, beautifully written, entertaining and very affecting novel - such an original voice, and Livers is a master at evoking the feel of this small community in Kentucky, with its diverse characters and sensibilities. Such a fine novel, and stunningly, her first.

[Ann Kling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story of a small town in Kentucky suffering from the loss of its young men in Vietnam reminded me of my home town and the way it was in 1969. The characters are quirky, but realistic. The mood is not upbeat. Worth reading.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livers brings forth these characters at this particular time and place vividly. It's not exactly built for surprise, but there are a few surprises along the way. Impressive writing.