Kinship of Clover

by Ellen Meeropol

He was nine when the vines first wrapped themselves around him and burrowed into his skin. Now a college botany major, Jeremy is desperately looking for a way to listen to the plants and stave off their extinction. But when the grip of the vines becomes too intense and Health Services starts asking questions, he flees to Brooklyn, where fate puts him face to face with a group of climate-justice activists who assure him they have a plan to save the planet, and his plants.

As the group readies itself to make a big Earth Day splash, Jeremy soon realizes these eco-terrorists devotion to activism might have him and those closest to him tangled up in more trouble than he was prepared to face. With the help of a determined, differently abled flame from his childhood, Zoe; her deteriorating, once rabble-rousing grandmother; and some shocking and illuminating revelations from the past, Jeremy must weigh completing his mission to save the plants against protecting the ones he loves, and confront the most critical question of all: how do you stay true to the people you care about while trying to change the world?

Genres: Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

Published April 4, 2017

About the author

Ellen Meeropol is the author of six novels: Sometimes an Island (2026), The Lost Women of Azalea Court, (2022), Her Sister's Tattoo (2020), Kinship of Clover (2017), On Hurricane Island (2015), and House Arrest (2011). A former pediatric nurse practitioner, Ellen began seriously writing fiction in her fifties. She holds an MFA from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine. Her stories and essays have appeared in Guernica, Bridges, Ms Magazine, Lilith, Writers Chronicle, The Writer, and Necessary Fiction.

Drawing material from her twin passions of medicine and social justice activism, Ellen’s fiction explores characters at the intersection of political turmoil, ethical dilemmas, and family life.

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started Ellen Meeropol’s fine new book – Kinship of Clover, her best so far – I didn’t expect to begin my review with a reflection on connections and mortality. But it’s the end of another year, our planet is in peril with a new selfish and misguided administration, and the book made me pause and reflect…which is precisely what a book is meant to do.

Within the pages of this book, this author introduces original, quirky, and often well-meaning characters who imperfectly but fervently deal with some of today’s most important issues -- climate change and biodiversity loss, memory care, and mental health, for example – as well as being authentic and connected in a complex world. The poster boy of this book is Jeremy, who is obsessed with dead plants and the intertwining of vines that wrap around him and burrow into his skin. This intertwining is a metaphor for the human condition – the way we sometimes cling to each other in our need for affirmation and connection.

Readers of her debut book, House Arrest, will recognize some of these characters: Emily’s cousin Anna and her ex-husband Sam, who share in caring for their young daughter Zoe, who has spina bifada…Tian, the cult leader who was sent to jail for the death of two toddlers in the Frozen Babies Case and his twin sons, Jeremy and Tim. As in that book, Ellen Meeropol explores how the moral complexities of politics and medicine play out in the real world.

And while there is a reader’s delight in exploring what happened to past characters, who have now moved on, it is a new character that spoke to me the strongest: Sam’s mother Flo. An aging feminist activist, Flo is life force in her granddaughter Zoe’s life, a pillar of her sisterhood group and the very definition of a strong woman. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Flo is losing her memory but not her spirit and is striving to keep that spirit strong and not be forced to endure pharmacological intervention. As a woman who has forcefully advocated for my own mother (who has Lewy Body Dementia) to avoid unnecessary drug intervention that saps her very essence, I will add that Ellen Meeropol doesn’t hit a false note in this depiction.

All of this sounds very “heavy”. In fact, the initial publicist blurb almost made me shy away. But make no mistake, this is not a so-called issue-based book as much as it is a book about how the issues that affect us today transform us as people. It is also, surprisingly, a hopeful book. And in today’s times, lord knows, we need one of those.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do a former political activist, Flo, crushed by Alzheimer’s, a botany major, Jeremy, who hallucinates extinct plants spiraling out of his fingertips, a teenage girl, Zoe, with spina bifida, a senior citizen women’s group, and an ex-con who served time for the death of his two young babies have in common? In Ellen Meeropol’s third and timely, moving novel, endangered species is the theme; relevance and obsolescence are the distress signals.

“You are someplace and all of a sudden you don’t know where you are and all the landmarks disappear and you’re lost…” “At some point, soon, all her words would be gone and she would disappear.”

The words come from Flo, as her memory continues to lapse, but it could just as easily been spoken by Jeremy, whose hallucinations pervert reality and its margins, or Zoe, confined mostly to a wheelchair, navigating her physical space differently than the able-bodied, and who is faced with daily challenges regarding the prevailing customs of her age. The women’s group of senior citizens joke about coming up with a name to parry their relevance. An ex-convict fresh out of prison feels lost. They all face the fear that they are invisible to others, even while they seek validation and constancy.

“How do you stay true to the people you care about? ...While you’re trying to change the world?”

Key questions for all these characters. They have worked all their lives to be a sustaining voice in a world of disposable interests and draining surplus. How can we create a sustainable future for later generations, in our food and air, but also in our collective resolve. Our sustenance, the narrative demonstrates, depends on the deeper connections to each other. We talk of permaculture, recycling, and carbon footprints, but what about keeping our memories alive, reclaiming our past, and repairing the toxicity in our own families?

When Flo’s decaying consciousness fails completely, her memories potentially die with her, unless they survive through the compassion of people who care. There is also the dormant toxicity of secrets, threatening to spill and infect the very loved ones you are trying to protect. The past is about to swallow Jeremy and bury Flo for the burdens they carry and refuse to share. The planet may be polluted and poisoned, but we also contaminate our families by keeping them in the dark.

Rhetoric often dishonors individuals. Buoyed by Earth Day protests, Jeremy signs on to end corporations, to stop using fossil fuels and to banish production of plastics. However, Zoe’s life depends on plastic tubing, high-tech devices and life-saving medicines. How do you reconcile saving the planet with convictions that, if made policy, would kill the ones you love? Flo faces similar pietism. All her life, she joined marches and demonstrations for civil rights, yet she is hiding explosive secrets from her family. Eco-terrorism or secret terrors threaten to derail our secure foundations. You can’t always defend a means to an end.

As Jeremy is suffocating in strangulating vines that wrap around his body, and Flo is drowning in fugue states, they both suffer by grasping on to remembering, forgetting, and facing irrelevance. Their intertwined families are endangered by activism, but could be saved by a more personal stewardship—conserving and preserving humanity by conveying compassion and courage toward loved ones. Moreover, jettison the protest signs and attend to the individual. Love the ones you love.

This is Ellen Meeropol’s best-written work to date. Her prose is meaty and essential, and her narrative examines the contradictions that often exist between our passionate beliefs and the way we actually live. Our choices can heal the great divide, if we give humanity a chance.

[Michelle Stockard Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a believer in global warming and climate change, but those of us who do believe don't often go beyond thinking of endangered species, deforestation, and pollution. Jeremy, the protagonist of Kinship of Clover, has a strong connection to plants due to family trauma suffered as a child. He feels a kinship with, and a need to save, plants that have become extinct, or are becoming extinct.

But this book is not just about environmental activism. It's a story about family. About the connections that make and break us. It's about how families choose to live can affect the children, and how secrets kept can cause a lot of heartache, and yet, lead to redemption in the end.

I loved every single character in this book. The author did a great job of illustrating a unique family dynamic and it really shines through. And, as a supporter of (peaceful) political activism, this book also spoke to me, especially considering the times and the events in which we are currently living. Some find books with a message off-putting. Not me. I like a story with a message. Even better if the message does not overwhelm the story. The balance is beautiful here.

Kinship of Clover is a book for those who like characters they can fall in love with, and for those who believe in fighting for what's right in the world. I highly recommend it.


I received this book free of charge from the author or publisher.

[Tinky Weisblat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinship of Clover is a warm and wonderful book about family, human responsibility, and differing ways of relating to the world. Ellen Meeropol has created a cast of sympathetic characters; my favorite is Flo, an elderly woman trying to hold onto her identity as an activist, friend, and grandmother as Alzheimer’s disease makes inroads in her brain and dignity. The novel is deeply moving. It made me laugh, cry, and think.

[Mac M · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. This took on a lot of heavy topics and attempted to conquer it all in a small number of pages. Really enjoyed this though, it was heart breaking and heart warming at the same time.

[Jacqueline Sheehan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to read an Advance Reading Copy of this fabulous book. I keep thinking that each new book from Elli is her best, and it is. I love this book, with its combination of whimsy and pain, hope and despair. These characters dig deep to find each other, looking beyond the physical to the true self. I'm going back to read this again because I want to spend more time with these characters.

[Jane Burford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t particularly enjoy this read. There seems to be a lot of peripheral characters and stories with not much development and stories ended quite quickly and predictably. I found some of the stories a bit over the top and unrealistic. It all seemed rushed. To me it is more of a young readers novel. 2.5 stars.

[Diane D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinship of Clover is a novel which reintroduces a few of the characters from House Arrest. I actually read this book first without realizing it and it worked out just fine for me.

Jeremy and Tim are twins from an unconventional family. Their parents were sentenced to prison for criminal negligence which resulted from the deaths of 2 young children who froze to death in a park in 2005. When Jeremy was a 9 year old child he claimed to have felt plants wrap themselves around him and borrow into his skin during a greenhouse funeral ceremony. Now, a Botany major at the University of Massachusetts, Jeremy is upset about the variety of plants that are becoming extinct because of ecological changes. When his passion for endangered species at college is perceived to be a little over the top, college officials, concerned for his well-being take action and place him on leave, reuniting him with his twin brother in Brooklyn. But, in Brooklyn Jeremey's passion for the environment is still front and center. He becomes involved with some eco-terrorists that just might not have his best interest in mind.

In this novel a few new family members are introduced which include, Flo, grandmother and aging political activist who is dealing with dementia. Zoe, Flo's granddaughter, who has spina bifida, Tian, the cultish leader whose children froze to death in 2005.

This book addressed some tough issues, the environment, trauma, Alzheimer's and the importance of finding ones place in life. Like House Arrest, I loved the references to familiar places as well as the political and social justice issues covered. I felt this book was fairly well written, although a bit slow at times, but, ultimately what started out as somewhat sad story made me feel hopeful by the end.

I plan to read the author's other book, On Hurricane Island (2015), touted as a "fast-paced political thriller" soon.

Rat

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

At its heart, Ellen Meeropol’s Kinship of Clover is a novel about family in all its contradictory, confounding and sustaining forms. The characters who populate Meeropol’s novel live in a landscape backgrounded by family trauma: the deaths of young children, the breakup of marriage, the impact of incarceration, the onset of dementia. This landscape is itself contextualized by both natural and societal traumas: the deaths of plant species, the breakup of communities. The family of humanity. The family of all life on Earth.

Kinship of Clover is ultimately a novel of hope, as characters negotiate their way through memory loss, mental instability, and loneliness to find that family is--even as it changes--what holds us together. Families of friendship; families who do manage to heal, at least somewhat, from the past; potential future families. All are kinships with deep roots like clover that pull valuable nutrients from the subsoil to the top.

***A word about stars***
I can't tell you how much I dislike stars. Like the grades I hated to give when I taught creative writing, they seem to mean something, but what that something is differs in each instance from all others. Why is one book a four for me instead of a five? It could be anything from a few too many uncaught typos, an anachronism or two, or an ineffective tense shift to a bit of redundancy or a "fact" of the fiction that contradicts my own sense of "fact." It could be I am reading in and responding to a genre that is not among my preferred ones.

What is a five for me? Likely anything by Toni Morrison, Jose Saramago, Louise Erdrich, Marilynne Robinson, Sherman Alexie. A book not only well written but precisely (invisibly) edited. A book I keep thinking about, because I can't stop thinking about it.

Either four or five stars means I found a book well worth my time and think you might, too.

[Cathi Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellen Meeropol's Kinship of Clover is a book that is far more than the blurb (cited above) reveals. Told from a variety of characters' points of view, this book touches on complex real topics. Kinship of Clover is a deep and moving narrative that engages the reader from start to finish.

Jeremy, the character described in the blurb, is only one of several main characters. There is Zoe, a 17-year old girl tied to her wheelchair due to her spina bifida, whose intellect and passion infuses the pages. Then there is Flo, Zoe's former activist grandmother, who is struggling with the terrifying experience of losing her memories, her freedom, and her life to her rapidly progressing Alzheimer's. And there is Zoe's father, Sam, who is coming to terms with his mother's declining health while watching his only child fall in love and dealing with his own pervasive loneliness.

The strengths of this novel are twofold. First, the character development is truly masterful. Meeropol draws the reader into the lives and minds of not just one character but a whole cast. One can't help relating to the heartbreak of Flo's memory loss and declining health or the excitement of Zoe's first romance. If the book just stopped at a cast of well developed characters, it would be good but would not come close to the depth Kinship of Clover reaches. The second successful ingredient that makes this book outstanding is Meeropol's willingness to touch on rarely discussed topics, especially when put together in one text. The real challenges of mental illness, environmentalism, living with a complex disability, dementia, activism, interracial relationships, parenting, and family dynamics are discussed in an authentic and powerful manner.

This was the type of book that keep you thinking long after you finish it and make you want to go back and read it again. I highly recommend it!

[Marnie Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve just finished reading Ellen Meeropol’s marvelous new novel. I was completely engrossed in it from start to finish. It was interesting to me how cozy it was being inside all the main characters. They were both familiar and surprising in their takes on their worlds. Maybe it was the generosity of all toward each other even when they disagreed that made them feel so real and inviting. Not surprisingly, I loved Flo, the septuagenarian activist, both her world view and her obstreperousness as she does not go gently into the throes of Alzheimer’s. She just pops off the page; what a great creative achievement she is. And I was intrigued and impressed with Meeropol’s handling of the tentative moves toward young love of Jeremy, who is obsessed with the global loss of plant species, and Zoe, who does not let the rigors of spina bifida get in the way of living life to its fullest; these are two other unforgettable characters.
It was interesting to me how Meeropol gradually fed in the characters’ back stories from an earlier book, masterfully accomplished in that reader doesn’t have to know the previous novel to get the gist of what informs their current lives. And her plotting, the page turning aspect of it, is better than ever. I’m very impressed with Meeropol’s development as a fiction writer. I look forward with anticipation to the reworking of her tyro novel manuscript which I was privileged to read. The talent was apparent then, though frankly there was no way to know where she’d go with it. But with this book the die is cast; she’s become an extraordinary story teller and superlative American political writer. We, as her readers, are indebted to her and thrilled to have her works in the canon.

[Jean Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a novel of “ordinary” people dealing with circumstances so difficult they will result in life-altering decisions. The characters will struggle and face their challenges, and the reader will come to see them as anything but ordinary.

Jeremy, one of the main characters, is a college senior majoring in botany. He is riven with concerns over extinct plant species and driven to preserve what remains. He has begun to hallucinate extinct species growing out of his skin and enveloping him in—at times overwhelming—leafy tendrils. He has known wheelchair-bound Zoe, who has spina bifida, for many years, but their relationship grows and is nurtured through their kindness and regard for one another.

Zoe, who is a sympathetically drawn free-spirit who wheel-chair dances to express her joy, is the liaison between Jeremy and her force-of-nature grandmother, Flo, who is in rapid decline after the onset of Alzheimer’s.

This is a novel with many strands, all expertly woven into a complex but wholly satisfying plot.

Meeropol deals with many contemporary issues (the environment, aging, Alzheimer’s, the perious state of healthcare and ensuing decisions to be made under dire cicumstances.) She manages all of this, including a cast of worthy characters rising to the challenges not of their choosing, with grace and integrity. She accomplishes this and more without being didactic. Instead she delivers a sensitive novel on issues of great importance through the development of characters we come to love.

Read this book.

[Celine Keating · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Kinship of Clover to be the most affecting of Meeropol’s novels so far. An ensemble work that shifts among many characters, Meeropol keeps you turning pages because you come to care so deeply about each of them – Jeremy, the sensitive plant-loving young man; Zoe, the spirited girl who refused to be defined by her disability; Sam, her caring father; and Flo, her fiery activist grandmother, who is facing mental decline. As in her previous novels, Meeropol explores the nexus of personal life and the larger world, examining big social issues–here, primarily, the disasters wrought by climate change– as they impact beautifully drawn individuals. The writing is downright breathtaking in the descriptions of the plants that “appear” to Jeremy and in Flo’s perceptions as her dementia worsens. This is a novel full of heart; deeply moving and unforgettable.

[Siel Ju · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’m building a new life, one that’s all mine.”
*
I picked up Ellen’s novel at AWP earlier this year when she and I signed books together at the Red Hen Press booth! Kinship of Clover is about Jeremy, a college student who grows up in a commune then becomes really obsessed with plants going extinct and almost gets involved with an ecoterrorist group. Despite the subject matter, this was a calm, genial read.

[Hermine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. There is something quite lovely in the way the characters' humanity and dignity is interwoven with the ecological warnings of the extinction of species and the threat to human survival as biodiversity diminishes as a result of habitat threats. Elli Meeropol is a write of great heart and I love reading her novels.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book in a giveaway. This book follows the lives of Flo and Jeremy. They are connected by complex family ties and their activism. This book follows them as they look at their past and accept their futures. I enjoyed the book and would read Merropol again.

[Jennifer Pullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had very mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, the content was exactly the kind of thing I am interested in. On the other hand, sometimes it felt like it was written to check off boxes. Overall, I liked it a lot, but wasn't stunned.

[Tony Rothschild · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good characters

Good characters. I liked that the author gave the reader the interior thinking of several characters. There was tension between characters and the reader could hear it from both sides. I will look for more of this author’s books.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dull and it just stops...I did enjoy it but found at least 3 typos...maybe 4. That always turns me off. I probably missed the point...I did like the characters.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The whole time I kept thinking, this book is so strange. A guy that loves plants so much that he says their Latin names outpouring a radio show. Yet, I kept reading.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for book club. This was a mess. An issues book that seemed to dump in too many issues. Errors, typos and repetition took me out of the story constantly. The characters were flat and unlikeable.

[Marinacramer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A multi-layered story that explores the concept of otherness in its many forms - physical, psychological, generational - with compassion and humor. A book with heart.

[Steve Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol

This novel has characters that extend from Ellen Meeropol’s first novel House Arrest.
They are both under 300 pages and I would recommend reading House Arrest first although Kinship of Clover can probably stand on it’s own if House Arrest is not available. On the other hand even House Arrest only refers to certain traumatic event as happening in the past, these events are more re-enacted here.
The story is set 12 years after twin boys have a traumatic event occur in the cult they were born into. The novel tells the story of Jeremy, now in college, experiencing unexplained psychological emotions that cause him to feel and see plant vines growing around him and through him until he gets lost in them.
It also tells a story of someone on the other side of life with dementia getting worse. Here Flo is losing herself. She had a strong individual identity but is losing it.
Does Jeremy want to get lost, become part of the plants, and Flo want to hold to what she was, not ready to drop ego and become one with nature? She’s an activist, about The People.
I liked that about the atmosphere of the novel. A multi-generational activism is assumed, or at least a natural part of life.
Both of these stories affect the people connected to Flo and Jeremy. Meeropol creates characters with convincing real family connections so the feelings connected to the human difficulties of the main characters reverberate through the others. The emotions of human connection are familiar to this writer, she knows how to work with them, present them convincingly. The difficulties, the dementia and the hallucinations, are drawn with detailed composition and regarded as the mysteries they are. She creates families that are believable and like that found in the world:”OK, we are no longer married but I'll live in the upstairs apartment and help out with the kid.”

It is not all about family stuff. There are big issues out there and committed activists struggling in one way or another, for change. It is hard for the young and innocent Jeremy to properly read the intentions and tactics of the people he is getting involved with.
Jeremy's hallucinations are told in a way that shows them as interesting and scary at equal proportions. This seems realistic. Does the patient wish to drop this fantastic part of himself for the sake of some normality standard?

[Linda Sienkiewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

How far does civil disobedience need to go before it makes a difference in the world, and at what personal cost?

A Kinship of Clover revolves mostly around Jeremy, a 19 year old botany major. The story intertwines family, several generations, and the community at large, highlighting our tenuous interdependence. Global warming and its environmental consequences play a big part in this story, but Meeropol doesn't preach or bury us in politics. She gives faces to the cause in the character's personal stories.

Readers feel Jeremy's passion and desperation as, in times of stress, he imagines extinct flowers blossoming from his knuckles, and ancient vines curling around his ankles and climbing up the back of his shirt. To calm himself, he recites the Latin names of these plants, while fearing he's going crazy. Yet his obsession with vines that grow out of nowhere is only one of many secrets Jeremy feels he must hide.

His reluctant involvement with a radical environmental protest group has led to FBI agents breathing down his neck. He's haunted by the accidental deaths of his two half-siblings eleven years ago. Dealing with his father, just released from prison after being charged with the babies' accidental deaths, is awkward. Jeremy hopes to find support from his twin brother, but Tim seems determined to deny the tragedies of their past. With all this, you'd think the least of Jeremy's concerns is that he's falling in love with a girl in a wheelchair, but it's not.

His girlfriend, Zoe, had never really considered romance as a possibility in her life. Plus she has her own worries as her once spirited, political activist grandmother, Flo, is fading fast. Zoe fears Flo's spirit will die once she's medicated and placed in a nursing home. Yet, in rare moments of lucidity, she offers Jeremy and Zoe insights about how to stay true to your ideals.

A Kinship of Clover is a marvelously inventive story about hope and the challenges we face to protect our environment, and how different generations can work together to bring about change. As humans, we depend on each other as much as our beautiful and strange planet depends on us. We must be attentive caretakers to both the personal and the political issues in our lives. As Jeremy learns, it starts at home.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This exquisitely crafted novel chronicles the lives of a group of families navigating contemporary Springfield, Massachusetts, life. The author presents us with characters who span the racial, gender, and age spectrums. With such vivid descriptive detail, she presents them to us and welcomes us into their lives, making them and the difficulties they encounter instantly recognizable. Their tales highlight the linkages between issues that at first glance appear unrelated, such as the need to address global warming, the reality of living with a disability, the effects of a tragic family past, and the difficulties faced by people who fight for justice. With a deftness that is reminiscent of Alice Walker and Barbara Kingsolver, Ms. Meeropol navigates her territory. A particularly striking sight transforms what may be viewed as a psychotic episode into a beautiful moment when the natural world and human generations coexist. I really like how the author brought up Rachel Corrie—may we never forget her name and her message—as well as the book's characters, illustrations, and frank portrayal of the difficulties, joys, and tragedies of life.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review coming, I promise, but in the meantime, I think this is my favorite of Ellen Meeropol's works to date. (Disclaimer-- I've been reading her writing for several decades, but most of that has been email, professional writing, then later, poetry, short stories, and her first two novels.) One of the things I like most about her fiction is how she entwines her passion for social justice, and her expertise in health care into her novels, Kinship of Clover being no exception. (Publication date: February 3, 2017.)

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinship of Clover writes with heartbreaking truth, clarity, and empathy, illustrating how deeply entwined are the search for justice, the cost society imposes on political beliefs, and the price children can pay for their parent’s convictions. The author weaves strands of family and friends who go back decades, in connections and beliefs, until you are desperate to see the final fabric. Meeropol had me turning pages deep into the night, forcing me to think, making me cry, and, finally, having me believe in the possibility of a better world. I loved this book.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinship of Clover is a novel for our times. It asks tough questions: How do we form identity? What is family? What are our responsibilities to ourselves, to others, to society? Her characters find few answers except to live as thoughtfully and lovingly as you can and always be an actor in the world. It’s a complicated tale woven together through relationships between a traumatized young man who cares deeply about environmental degradation, a wheelchair-bound teen hell-bent on independence, a father trying to let go of both daughter and mother, and a woman at the end of life, living through an activist past while sinking into dementia. There are secrets and discoveries. People unravel and come together. Paths are chosen and forsaken. The bittersweet ending, like life itself, does not resolve everything, but brings the characters to new challenges. But it is a hopeful book and a great companion for troubled times.

[Dusty Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m genuinely awed by Ellen Meeropol’s range of imagination and voice. Kinship of Clover digs deep into important and challenging issues, while at the same time offering the reader an unforgettable group of lovable and very real characters. Jeremy’s tender experience of visions and first love brought me to tears, as did Flo’s funny heart-breaking battle with aging. Sam and Zoe are characters you ‘d want to count among your closest friends.
This book offers several surprises for Meeropol’s fans. It’s a skillful sequel to House Arrest, bringing back characters we were eager to revisit, yet not requiring a new reader to feel off balance in not having entered the story the first time round. The other surprise is that Kinship of Clover feels like a lovely Spring day after the powerful but chilling intensity of On Hurricane Island. Ellen Meeropol is an accomplished writer who just gets better and better!

[Holly Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are not familiar with Ellen Meeropol's brand of political but totally engrossing fiction, you are in for a treat in this, her third novel. She creates moving and convincing characters, from a teenager with spina bifida to an older woman coming to terms, or refusing to, with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. The touch of surrealism -- one young man's thoughts, or maybe hallucinations? come to life as he mourns the extinction of parts of the natural world -- adds an intense and affecting element to the plot. I was completely absorbed in the story and the people, and wished it wouldn't end.