Juniper Tree Burning

by Goldberry Long

Juniper Tree Burning is a dazzling meditation on legacy and legend, rebellion and renewal.
When Jennie Braverman, formerly known as Juniper Tree Burning, gets news of her brother Sunny Boy Blue's suicide, she flees her new husband and embarks upon a mad dash across the American West toward the site of Sunny's death. Forced to confront the past, Jennie must face the shame of the childhood name she has been so happy to shed. Only after she weaves her way through a tapestry of family sorrows -- poverty, a spider-infested adobe house, and the legacy of her hippie parents -- will Jennie be able to take on her greatest accepting love.

Genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Book Club, Literature

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[unnarrator · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a three-and-a-half star book, really, but I'm giving it four because when else did ANYONE write a book about growing up hippie white-kid in northern NM? An old acquaintance from El Rito shared this one with me--he'd grown up not knowing who his dad was, living with his mom (a weaver who sold stuff at the farmer's market) in a VW bus and/or squatting, and living from disability check to check--the working-class Hispanic kids at school mocking him (and hitting him) because his mom made him lunch with brown (whole wheat) tortillas instead of white ones. And because he read books.

I guess you had to have been there. Some of us were. In which case you'll want to give it four stars too. If you weren't there, you'll think it only deserves three. She's not a great writer, not yet anyway. But the story is raw and visceral, and told flatly and with anger. I like this book. Scenes from it come back to me still.

[sylas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd actually like to give this book 3.5 stars. Maybe even four. I need to ruminate about it some more, I think.

This book was very difficult for me to read. I mean, it took me quite a long time. I really struggled with the negativity of the main character. Her self loathing was so intense, it was almost triggering for me. I think I related too much to Jennie. In ways that I didn't want to.

This is a story about family. About choosing the way your past will impact your future, and - really - every moment of your life. I adored the way this book ended. I think I had to really hate Jennie to love her.

This book took me a MONTH to read. If you know me, you know this is unheard of. Proof of my struggle, I suppose.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than what I've read recently

[Chana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Born to hippie parents from Seattle who have settled in New Mexico, Juniper Tree Burning has a difficult life from the beginning. Her parents quickly become wanna-be Indians involved with a church that uses peyote as medicine and meets in a tipi. At home in their adobe they have no running water, no indoor toilet. They haul up water from a well, they have an outhouse. For a long time they have no heat until the father builds a fireplace that sadly cracks the house in half. When Juniper is about 9 her brother Sunny Boy Blue is born. Juniper loves him and takes care of him as best she can but it is very hard. Sunny is also his mother's favorite and Juniper is one lonely, dirty, sad little girl. She is teased terribly at school for her weird name, for being the child of hippies, for being dirty and poor. Her parents fight all the time and her father is always leaving for days, even months, at a time. Juniper retreats into a world of stories that she makes up and tells to Sunny, about grandparents in Seattle, about the house on the highest hill where their mother grew up. There is some basis in fact for the stories but it is pretty bare bones. Sunny is very attached to Juniper but Juniper can hardly stand herself, hated child that she is, and when she starts to separate from her child self, when she starts becoming an angry teen and leaves home, she wants to be Jennie and leave Juniper behind. Sunny; dirty, sick, skinny, scared, needy...reminds Jennie too much of Juniper and she leaves him behind as well. 14 or so years later Sunny jumps off a ferry and drowns. Jennie, not normal at the best of times, falls apart completely here. She is horrible, a very unlikable character. I got sick of her and I was basically on her side.
I lived through the 60's and look back in confusion. It was such a mess and whatever mess adults are in they have children and those children are stuck in the mess as well.
For a novel this is a very dense book; tense, unhappy, angry, tragic with occasional bright spots.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juniper Tree Burning by Goldberry Long is a novel about the psychotic break of a woman who has always been running from her family and her past, but now has to come to terms with her younger brother's suicide. Moving back and forth in time from when Juniper was young to the present, we see the dysfunctional hippy family life she experienced growing up as Juniper Tree Burning in contrast to her current life where she is known as Jennifer. Juniper's parents use her and her younger brother, Sunny Boy Blue, as pawns in their own troubled marriage.

Long moves effortlessly between the present and the past, using first and third person narratives, as the story slowly unfolds. She paints a vivid picture when describing her characters and the setting while more and more of the story is revealed.

Having first read Juniper Tree Burning after it was first released, this is a reread for me. I'll have to admit that the second time was not a charm in this instance. While it is still undoubtedly a very good novel, this time around it felt overly long and Jennifer/Juniper was not quite as compelling a character and became a bit tiresome.
Highly recommended - reread; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/

[Holly]

From Reading Matters: I have so many favourite books it's difficult to name one here. Usually I nominate George Johnston's My Brother Jack, which is my all-time favourite, but I thought I'd go for something a little off the beaten track. I can still remember the day I bought Juniper Tree Burning, from the now-defunct Books Etc in Festival Hall back in 2003. It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase. I knew nothing of the author and can't even tell you why I thought the story of an angry young woman brought up by hippies in New Mexico would resonate with me so much, but it did. I raced through this book in a matter of days and even now, seven years down the track, I still think of the main character, Jennie, and her incredible upbringing and the emotional road journey she undertakes following the suicide of her younger brother. To find out more about the book please do read my review.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me forever to read this book, mainly because I started it with a two week old baby. It was sad, in some ways sadder than any other book because the author showed intensely vunerable sides of the characters. The book was well throught-out and organized, and everything that bugged me as being weird eventually turned out to be part of the master plan. For example, when Juniper/Jennifer ate a bowl of guacamole with a spoon, I initially thought that was a pointles detail that sounded unlikely to happen in the real world. Then as the book went on and I learned more and more about the character I realized what a perfect detail it was.

[Desiree · Rating 5 out of 5]

i did not want to put this book down. others have commented on this protagonist being too close to home... i think jennie represents the insecurity plus strength of anyone who has been through a really difficult childhood and i think many of us relate to that. so it can be hard to read, at times. an amazingly well-drawn cast of characters and events that seems likely to be highly autobiographical, but perhaps goldberry long just has a great imagination.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What an endurance test it was to read this novel. Many times I thought of quitting it altogether, but somehow I persevered. For one, none of the characters were remotely appealing or likeable, including the protagonist, Juniper Tree Burning, aka Jennifer Braverman. Jennifer (Juniper) was angry, hateful, and selfish. Her parents and their circle of acquaintances were utterly unsympathetic. Hippies living in an adobe house (with a crack in the middle) in New Mexico, they didn't have running water or a bathroom or money to take proper care of their children. Their marriage was an utter disaster. Another annoyance was the constant shifting of point of view, as if Jennifer were inside looking out and outside looking in, often times within the same paragraph. If this was supposed to be some kind of literary experimentation, it didn't work except to distract the reader and make the reading jarring and unpleasant. Finally, it is the ultimate insult to a reader to constantly repeat points to drive them home. This 459-page novel could have been cut by at least 100 pages or more by eliminating the number of repetitions of themes: the grandparents in Seattle, the Treasured Memories album, the piano, the cracked wall in the adobe house, and the backwards birth of Sunny Boy Blue, Jennifer's brother, just to name a few. The best thing about Jennifer was her love of school and her desire to be a good student and a normal person. But somehow this sympathetic part of her was ignored in the later half of the book.

[Yj · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not certain how to rate or review this book.
The character of Sara was poorly written and vaguely irritating, I couldn’t muster up the energy even to hate her.
On the other hand, I related so strongly to the narrator that at times it was like a kick in the gut and I had to stop and catch my breath.
The ending was excellent and I cried.
Painfully accurate depiction of remaking yourself.

“But I don’t believe in signs. I don’t believe in fate. I believe in self-determination, in renovation, not religion. I belong to the Church of Reality, and our commandments are simple: see what you have. Know where you’re going. Do what you must. What my mother calls signs, I call careless mistakes, a thoughtless careening toward disaster, with a wailing, terrified infant bouncing behind, screaming, No! No, no, no!”

He believes in books more than God.

“Because,” he says, love and hate are exactly the same. And leaving feels worse than staying. All you can do is try to get the other person to make you leave.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Essie says. “Anyway, I don’t believe in God. God is for weaklings who don’t want to take charge of their own lives.”

I cried and choked on my crying and still beneath it was this: Juniper. She is always there, crouched inside me, twisting me until I don’t know who I am, and I am running but she’s still on my heels, always ugly, always doing it wrong, always hated, always crying, always waiting to drive them away.

[(Lonestarlibrarian) Keddy Ann Outlaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be repetitive and annoying, though it had some tolerable moments. The writing itself was polished and accomplished, but the basic plot of an angry young woman who had a terrible, horrible, countercultural childhood could have been handled in half as many pages. Juniper, who would rather be called Jennifer or Jenny, gets married too quickly and then learns that her only sibling, a brother, has committed suicide. So there are many complexes at work in her story, but things got so tiresome, I bailed about two-thirds of the way through and then skimmed the ending.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult book for me to read as the main character has such self-loathing, it’s depressing. Also, the number of time the word “hate” is used is very negative. While “Juniper Tree Burning” a/k/a “Jennie” lives in a highly dysfunctional hippie family, her loathing for herself and her parents is totally overdone.

The story is written in past and present, sometimes in the same chapter. Too much!!!

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

To avoid sitting idly by the garden waiting for bean seeds to germinate, I dug out this "library bag sale" book to read. Long and difficult, slow going at times, it took me days longer than usual to get through it, but glad I kept on reading.

I hope to read more by this author in the future.

Since beans usually take 7-14 days to germinate, I'm happy to say I liked the books' ending and my beans are up!

My favorite quote in the book "Hope is the last thing to die".

[Erika Kar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know how anyone gave this book 1 star.
I have read it 3 times now and every single time I got something new from it. It is a visceral storytelling. It is “about” so many things. And I felt it deep in me.
Yes, JTB, or Jennie, is unlikeable at times. But she makes you feel something. And to me, that is good writing.

[Melissa Stryffeler · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to stop reading it. It put me in a really bad mood. I hated the main character. The only person she ever thought of was herself. She really needed a mental institution. And there really wasn’t any point to the story. It was so slow and drug out. At least the book looks good on my shelf.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://2longinthewasteland.blogspot....

[Judi]

I didn't finish this book. I found it positively boring. I stuck with to 149 and I couldn't take it any longer

[Bailey Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still think this is the saddest novel I've ever read, but in a way that felt... like all the way through the sad, and into the other side. The writing is incredible.

[LeAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good book. I was amazed at how the author wrote from three different perspectives and the reader was able to know what was going on the entire time. It was a really good exploration of the main character. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was that it went on too long. Like, toooooo long. Face up to the problem, deal with the problem, move on. But read it. It was really good.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm about half-way through this book. I don't know that I can even describe my feelings for it yet. The narrator is a woman named Juniper Tree Burning. Her parents are blowout hippies who lived in and adobe house in the woods while she was growing up. It's her story of rejecting that life, but finding it a challenge to leave it totally behind her. I'll let you know how it goes!

I became much more inclined to like the protagonist of this book. She's sassy and messed up - something I can appreciate. I would definitely make this a rental instead of a purchase, but it's pretty okay for summer reading.

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid if somewhat predictable coming-of-age novel. Some wonderful landscape and character descriptions with an interesting structure that goes back and forth in time. Overall for me the book was hampered by three things: 1) the interority of the narrative voice made Juniper (or Jennifer as she calls herself) seem whinier than she should; 2) the ending resolves a little too neatly; and 3) the book seriously needed an editor---the story is a good 100 pages too long.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book it shows how your surroundings and everything in life affects you in some way. The way they portray the main character as being very angry and mean when in actuality she is really scared out of her mind because she has to figure out who she really is and it takes her brother dying to realize all this. I really loved the book because it really taught me about some of the reasons I am angry.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult read. I was able to follow passage between decades of childhood and adulthood and the implications of both but wondered if the writng was too complicated for the story. I certainly appreciate the authors: expert development of the main character and that chatacter's struggle when a troubled childhood and a new trauma converge. I would recommend if this is your genre but finishing will take some stamina

[Jessa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Possibly 1 1/2 stars. I skimmed far enough into the book and began reading again. I just couldn't relate to the main character. I am glad that she worked out some of her issues and was willing to begin loving and trusting at the end of the book. Seems a little drastic that Sunny had to die in order to do so.... I just did not enjoy the story and could not relate to the characters. Or much of anything.

[R Grebbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A one-off novel from the outstandingly talented Goldberry Long. I read this a few years ago and it left a lasting impression on me. I have never read a book that so accurately describes the angst of the main protagonist and her difficult relationship with herself, her family and her partner. I wish there were more books from this author as I would snap them up. Well-written but not an easy read due to the subject matter, I felt though that reading this novel was an incredible journey.

[Angelica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to work at Borders. As an employee we were given copies of books before they were put out into our store. The cover and title were the first things that caught my attention. This book really got to me. Very well written. Emotional. I saw bits off myself in the main character. Then ending was amazing and haunting.Would definitely recommend this book

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book you either really love or really hate. It's been a long time since I read it, but it was one that I loved enough to keep. It was depressing as hell, for sure, and for lots of obvious reasons, but there was a deeper streak running through it that I found extremely compelling. There is nothing neat and tidy about this book. It's one of my favorites.

[Luis Correa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm biased, but this book burns brightly. If a bit slow at times, it's really just a cue to slow down and take it in. There's a deeply honest humanity about the prose and the characters and it becomes overwhelming, but there were many instances in the book where it felt as if Juniper had reached into secret regions of my mind and fished out a sparkling moment of sincerity and vulnerability.

[Becki Warner · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get into this book, because of the negativity of the main character, but the progression of the book drew me in. I like how she developed as a character finding herself and how her past actions affected those around her. Although it was hard to read because of her anger, I eventually began to relate to her when she became just as vulnerable and scared as I can be.

[Veronica]

One of my favorites. I read it years ago, then found it ironically 2 months before I lost my little brother. I read it and it is about a older sister and younger brother relationship. (I must admit, I was a better sister than Jennifer Davis!). I read it after Adam died as well and it took on a whole new meaning. I want to find it and buy it. It was my Aunt Peggy's book that I had borrowed.