Strong Hollow

by Linda Little

In her bold debut novel, Linda Little has crafted a story where music, creativity, and sexuality merge, as a young Nova Scotian carver embarks on a profound discovery of his sense of self. Strong Hollow tells the story of Jackson Bigney, a young man coping with a crippling past of repression, alcoholism, and poverty. Failure seems built-in to Jackson's life. His father, a brutal man with a short fuse, despises his son, and Jackson's brothers thrive on drinking, violence and petty crime. Jackson finds solace only by carving tiny objects — acorns, field mice, bottle caps and leaves — as he has done since childhood. The day Jackson finds his father dead in a ditch beside the MacIntyre road is the day he begins his own metamorphosis. At nineteen, the seventh of nine children and the eldest still at home, Jackson seems predestined to follow in the feckless footsteps of his father. He becomes silent and empty, unable to feel or to articulate emotion. Setting himself up as a bootlegger, Jackson builds a small cabin. He lives only in the present, expecting no more from life than work, alcohol and empty sex. One summer, Jackson meets Ian Sutherland, an accomplished fiddler and a powerful attraction develops between them. Twenty-nine and in love for the first time, Jackson feels alive with anticipation and fulfilment. Inevitably, at summer's end, Ian leaves and Jackson is shattered. Seeking to fill the void in this life, Jackson begins to restore a derelict fiddle. At a music shop in Halifax, he meets an accepting circle of friends. And as the fiddle takes shape, Jackson's perceptions of himself begin to change and he realizes that how the world sees you is how you come to see yourself.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, LGBT

280 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure where I got this book, but it’s been kicking around for a long time. I was going to pass it on. Didn’t like the cover, not impressed with the story line. But I started to leaf through it, then sat down in my reading chair and got back up when I finished. Oh my heart! I am/was Jackson! To be the youngest and terribly introverted one in a large family where you were the scapegoat, the object of everyone’s anger and frustration, where nothing was ever safe, ever really your own, where you didn’t exist unless someone needed something to torment...although that wasn’t my family, it was my life. And this author just KNEW those feelings and how to convey them. The journey through Jackson’s life, as he struggled to break from his past and find a place where he was ok in the world, was like reliving my life. At the end, I sat hugging the book because I so much wanted to hug him, tell him things were going to be ok now, that he could still own his shattered family and shattered past without being destroyed by it. It took him 30 years; it took me 60. I have always loved the violin.

[Janet Barclay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't quite what I expected - it was even better! I thought it would be about a young gay man with a troubled past finding himself, but it was much more. Although Jackson learning he was gay was pivotal to the story, it's far from the whole story. The relationships between the members of his large family are depicted wonderfully, as disturbing as they are. This book deserves to be much better known!

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

In her debut novel Linda Little tells the story of a reticent and socially backward young man named Jackson Bigney. Early in the novel Jackson finds the body of his hard-living, hard-drinking father in a ditch not far from the family home in rural Nova Scotia. The death of his father represents a turning point for Jackson and the rest of the Bigney family. Jackson's mother is left to run the farm and Jackson--who after enduring nineteen years of emotional and physical terrorism at the hands of his father has been rendered uncommunicative and something of a misanthrope--builds himself a cabin in the woods. Jackson has no interest in farming. After moving into the cabin he goes on a drunken binge that lasts for several years, and to support his drinking sets himself up as a bootlegger. The path to self-destruction is interrupted however when he meets Ian Sutherland, a fiddler ten years younger than him. Love is a foreign concept to the reclusive Jackson (who, shielding himself from ridicule, has never formed a meaningful bond in his life) but Ian awakens a spark within him and the two begin an affair. When Ian abruptly leaves Nova Scotia to move to Toronto, Jackson, feeling betrayed, seeks solace in the bottle, but finds he no longer has the heart for it. He shuts down the bootlegging operation and stops drinking. To fill his time, he repairs a broken violin but soon moves on to building instruments from scratch. The discovery of this talent is his salvation, and through it he forges connections beyond his family and the immediate community. Little's story of personal redemption and self-discovery is emotionally rich and believable--especially where the Bigney family dynamic is concerned. The dialogue is sharp and often amusing. The myriad characters, sometimes very similar to one another, are drawn with a degree of care and precision that allows the reader to identify their distinctive traits. Little does not shy away from grim realities of rural life such as alcoholism and casual violence, but neither is she consumed by them. Gritty and truthful, Strong Hollow is also by turns entertaining and poignant. The novel is a quick read, but one that leaves an indelible impression.

[ATLANTIC BOOK REVIEWS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Little has strung every one of my nerves to it's absolute breaking point with the haunting narrative in this book. I felt so deeply and so strongly for Jackson (the book's main character) - I felt my heart would break in two. Growing up in rural Nova Scotia I met and lived alongside families much like the one in this book. Linda has crafted a story around the mentality of the generation I grew up in. I felt transported back to my growing up years. Each word has been carefully chose to evoke a deep sense of the angst it's characters feel in their poverty, their day to day struggles and what we now label dysfunction, but at the time is merely the way it was.

I especially loved that Linda didn't end the book all "wrapped up in a nice tidy bow." That would have been much too much to expect from the place and time that Linda described in the book.

I will be playing this book in my mind and it will stay in my heart for a good while before I can let my feelings about it go. I was so very glad to meet Linda and have her sign my book.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to Linda Little's writing through the book "Grist" ( which I thought was so brilliant) and only recently purchased her debut novel "Strong Hollow". I just finished reading it and wished I had a writers group to discuss it with! It's powerful, emotional and painfully real. How does the author get into the mind and psyche of a young man so completely? I felt Jackson's vulnerability and the weighted expectations placed on him by his family and society. This is a must read for anyone who longs to understand their place in the world and where love, hidden and hoped for, always finds it's way.

[Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grim and beautiful.

[Fibrelady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heart wrenching story of a man trying to find peace within himself and the joy he eventually found in an unexpected place.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

started slow, grabbed me as I went along, Jackson is a good complex character -- I want to know how he makes out

[Whoretense Facepillow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong Book. I think this was her first novel, quite detailed and gripping and moving even. Love that she gets a hyper masculine closet case.

[Adri L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spectacular!