Sugar Run

by Mesha Maren

In 1989, Jodi McCarty is seventeen years old when she’s sentenced to life in prison. When she’s released eighteen years later, she finds herself at a Greyhound bus stop, reeling from the shock of unexpected freedom but determined to chart a better course for herself. Not yet able to return to her lost home in the Appalachian Mountains, she heads south in search of someone she left behind, as a way of finally making amends. There, she meets and falls in love with Miranda, a troubled young mother living in a motel room with her children. Together they head toward what they hope will be a fresh start. But what do you do with your past—and with a town and a family that refuses to forget, or to change?

Set within the charged insularity of rural West Virginia, Mesha Maren’s Sugar Run is a searing and gritty debut about making a break for another life, the use and treachery of makeshift families, and how, no matter the distance we think we’ve traveled from the mistakes we’ve made, too often we find ourselves standing in precisely the place we began.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Adult, Audiobook

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2019

Reviews

[Larry H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

There are some books which fill you with a sense of foreboding the minute you start reading them, sort of the way you may be poised to put your hands over your eyes when watching a scary movie—you know something bad will happen, but you just don't know when.

That's the way I felt while reading Mesha Maren's Sugar Run . This novel about a woman's quest for a new beginning even though she quickly falls into all of her old habits isn't scary, but you can just feel that things could fall off the rails at any minute, and you wish it wouldn't. (Or at least I wished it wouldn't.)

Jodi was sentenced to life in prison when she was 17 years old, in 1989. Unexpectedly, she is released 18 years later, and she has a plan for what to do with this newfound freedom: move back to her childhood home in rural West Virginia and live on her grandmother's land, where she spent the majority of her youth. But first, she is determined to fulfill a promise made before she went to prison: rescue the developmentally and emotionally challenged younger brother of an old friend.

"Coming home was like disappearing in a way, she thought, slipping back into the past. Until a week and a half ago she had thought she would not return here until death—a body shipped to a family that barely remembered it, a body to be laid back into the mountains to rest—but now here she was, not just a body but a jumble of wild thoughts and emotions, coming home."

Less than 24 hours after being released from prison, heading to a small Georgia town, she encounters Miranda, a beautiful but troubled young mother of three, with a taste for pills and alcohol and a complicated relationship with her ex-husband, a once-famous singer. Despite every sign pointing her in the opposite direction, Jodi falls for Miranda, and the two begin planning a future that includes raising Miranda's children and her friend's brother back in Jodi's hometown. It seems almost too good to be true.

But when they return home to West Virginia, nothing is quite as it seems. Jodi and Miranda's idyllic plans are quickly dashed, and it isn't long before Jodi finds herself caught up in her family's potentially dangerous dysfunction, which could send her back to prison, if not endanger her life. Helping care for four children—not to mention a flighty, unstable girlfriend—in an area where same-sex relationships are far from welcomed, leaves Jodi unsure of which end is up and what she should do next.

"She told herself this was different, this was new, but still she could feel the weight of those mountains, even unseen, the heaviness of all that familiarity."

Can you ever truly outrun your mistakes and get a chance for a fresh start, even in the same old place? Where do you find the strength to recognize the signs that you're being pulled down again into another potentially destructive situation, even if there are glimpses of good amidst the chaos? Why doesn't anything work out the way you hope it will?

Switching back and forth between the months leading up to Jodi's arrest and the present, following her release from prison, Sugar Run is a story of a woman searching for second chances but not looking very far, or thinking clearly about what the right decisions are. It's also a story of a woman who really had no chance given the environment in which she was raised, and returning to it doesn't seem like the smartest idea. But can you escape your past?

While nothing horrible happens in the book, there are lots of close calls, and I still had this pervasive sense that everything could fall apart in a matter of minutes. Even though Jodi certainly is to blame for her own situation, the complexities that Maren has given her make her an appealing character despite her faults. She definitely knows how to tell a story and create an environment with tremendously vivid, evocative imagery.

Strangely, given all of the tension I felt while reading the book, the pacing was very slow, almost plodding. I also wasn't sure what Maren was trying to say with her characters—was she saying it's okay to live life the way they did because of their circumstances, or was she simply depicting what happens all too often in impoverished, rural areas?

Sugar Run is quite a debut novel, and it definitely hints at a promising career for Maren. She definitely gives her readers lots to think about!

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com, or check out my list of the best books I read in 2018 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2018.html. You can also follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/yrralh/.

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good Lort. I am finally done with this book!!!!!!!

This is an actual picture of me for the last 2 months reading it.


That's right. Two months.

So you have Jodi who is just getting out of prison. She was convicted of manslaughter and has finally got the freedom call. She keeps thinking about some land she supposedly has in West Virginia..so she is going to head towards that.
(Do I sound bored?? WELL I AM..that's all this book is going to get)

But first...right after she is released from prison she is traveling through Georgia and a small town that happens to be real is named dropped. Then there is a bus station there? I know it's a little thing but the author using a real town and not even checking her facts just bugged me. Make up a dang town if you don't have the few minutes to Google.


Then she picks up a girlfriend and the girlfriends kids. Oh wait and her girlfriend that she was convicted of killing? She goes and gets her brother too.

Now we headed to West Virginia. You would think with this many characters that something would happen wouldn't you?????? IT FRIGGING DOES NOT!
Nothing happens. This whole stinking book has nothing happening. You think at times that something will...but then nope.

GOOD GRIEF to peanut butter!!!! I don't have much time to read so now when I do manage to finish a book it needs to be good.
I'm going back to my regularly scheduled programming...……


Because it's way more entertaining that this pile of paper!!


Booksource: I was given this book to read from the publisher. I hope they don't hate me.

[Susanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 Stars* (rounded up).

There are times, when the cards are stacked against you. Be it of your own making or simply the cut of the deck on any given day. In “Sugar Run” - try as hard as she might, Jodi just can’t catch a break.

Seventeen years ago, in 1989, Jodi was arrested for manslaughter. She spent eighteen years in prison and honestly never imagined she’d get out. Yet here she is. Her destination is her Grandmother’s Effie’s cabin in West Virginia - which her Grandmother left to Jodi as a little girl. Jodi has always imagined Effie’s cabin. Making a life there, the beauty, the simplicity, the peace and quiet.

Mere minutes out of jail, Jodi meets Miranda, with her three kids in tow, on the run from her husband. Miranda is needy … needier than Jodi. An addict who takes one look at Jodi and sees hope and a way out. Simply put, Miranda replaces one addiction for another. On the way out of town, Jodi makes a stop. She picks up a young man named RIcky - he was just little boy when she saw him last. He is Paula’s son. Her former lover. And she made a promise to go back for him.

For Jodi and her brood, things don’t quite go as planned - though they never do, do they? For Jodi, she can’t see past what she wants in life, what she thinks needs. Everyone has plans for her, plans which would get her into deep trouble, yet she doesn’t have the wherewithal to stop the wind from swirling around her. She can’t outrun her past and her mistakes must be atoned for.

Though “Sugar Run” by Mesha Maren is a brilliant character study and I ached for Jodi to finally “get it,” I simply knew she wouldn’t. Not with the choices she kept on making. For Miranda, her path were clear from the beginning. At the end of the novel I was however left wanting, thoroughly disappointed. Thinking, that’s it? Really? Thus, for me, right here, right now, there is nothing left to say.

Published on Goodreads on 1.20.19.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

”I was raised up from tiny
childhood in those purple hills,
right slam on the brink of language”
-- Denis Johnson

The women in the prison where Jodi is in residence have no idea what the landscape outside looked like, except the prison yard. As this story begins, Jodi is in the process of being released after eighteen years at Jaxton, she’d never known that there were mountains all around.

“From the exercise yard she had seen only what was straight above, a sometimes gray, sometimes blue rectangular lid of sky. Mountains were a dream that had ended when the judge said life in prison. Mountains were far off, West Virginia, home.”

Home for her is a land she hasn’t seen in many years, it’s where she was lived with Effie, her grandmother, until she was sixteen and Effie died. The land that her grandmother had left was so deeply a part of her, it held her memories, her moments spent with Effie when she was alive. It’s only natural that that land is where she wants to be once those doors open and she regains her freedom. It’s the connection to that time, her family. The land.

The problem with wanting to revisit the past, relive all those wonderful moments are the other moments… the secrets you’d forgotten, or thought would stay hidden away. They have a tendency to pop up in the most unwelcome moments.

When Jodi first meets Miranda Matheson, they recognize something in each other that feels familiar. A hunger for a better life, and a past filled with bad choices, especially in men. They bond over this, take some comfort in this. Miranda’s bad choice didn’t give her an 18-year prison sentence, but three young children and a bad marriage to a has-been musician, a former country music star. It isn’t long before Jodi is smitten by Miranda, and Miranda sees the gleam in Jodi’s eyes, and begins to see a future where she will be taken care of by Jodi. Jodi will help her get away from her husband, and soon they are on their way to the farm she inherited from her grandmother, with another young boy from an abusive home along.

This novel skillfully weaves in and out of different timelines, one from 20 years before, and one in the almost present. While the essence of this is “grit-lit,” dark and gripping, it doesn’t cross the line into gross-lit. People do get hurt, blood may be spilled, but there are no gratuitous descriptions.

I wanted to read this for its location, West Virginia, the background problems such as fracking, substance abuse, and the things the people in these towns face. My father was born and raised in West Virginia, as were both of his parents. I’ve been there; I still have cousins that live there, although I only met them as adults. It’s beautiful country, a little less manicured than where I grew up, but I’ve been extended such lovely and genuine hospitality when I’ve been there, that I view it with love.

This is also the birthplace of the author, Mesha Maren, and out of her knowledge and love of the Appalachian area, and the knowledge gained by her father’s work with the Alderson Hospitality House, a nonprofit that cares and supports the women in the federal prison in Alderson, WV a story grew. Out of her life there, and her frequent visits to the Hospitality House at his side as a young girl she was able to create a riveting story. What Maren has produced from that knowledge, those memories and her obvious talent is this impressive debut novel. A beautifully fashioned Southern noir story that will keep you completely engaged from beginning to end, not to be missed.


Published: 08 JAN 2019


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Algonquin Books

[Suzanne Leopold (Suzy Approved Book Reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jodi Mccarty is 35 years old and has just been released from prison. She was incarcerated for seventeen years after shooting her girlfriend in a jealous rage. Her plan is to head back to West Virginia where she will live on her grandmother’s land. On her journey, she makes a stop in Georgia to help her late girlfriend's brother who grew up in an abusive home. There, she unexpectedly meets and quickly falls for a twenty-five-year-old drug addict named Miranda who is struggling to raise three young boys. Jodi collects the brother along with Miranda's family and brings them all to West Virginia in hopes of a brighter future.

Upon her arrival, Jodi finds that her grandmother’s land is rundown and was sold while she was in prison. She also re-connects with her brother who lives on the edge as a heroin dealer. With the stigma of being a felon it is difficult to get a job while her brothers activities are putting her and friends at risk. Despite her desire to do better and change her ways, she finds limited choices are conspiring to push her back into her old life.

This is a debut novel by Mesha Maren. I loved ”Sugar Run” and was quickly drawn into the story because of the unique and gritty environment. The character’s development was complex and authentic as she teters between moving forward and backward .

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blurbed by Scott McClanahan and Lauren Groff, agent Bill Clegg, published by Algonquin, Sugar Run is about a woman who was sentenced at 17 for murder and then without warning released and left without any resources to return home to West Virginia. The story alternates between 2007 ("present" day) and 1989 to fill in the gaps. I can't say I "enjoyed" it per se, that's not the right word for it, because the premise is dark, the main character is flawed and violent, and so is the world she is trying to navigate post-incarceration. I feel like it's supposed to be a character study but doesn't go quite deep enough for me - it's a little too event focused and holds too much back in an attempt to not finish the story of the crime she is accused of until the end of the book. But without knowing the truth of that event you can't really know the truth of that character, because you aren't privy to her full range of thoughts. So now I feel like I'm finished and confronted with processing all of the information I wish I'd had earlier. But that's probably a personal preference. I would still absolutely read her next book.

I do like the setting, the same sex relationships (and it's not about "coming out," but about living with a woman in rural America), it covers drugs and fracking and trying to survive after incarceration.

3.5 stars rounded up

Thanks to the publisher who sent a copy at the end of last year, and I talked about it briefly on a speed dating episode of the podcast. I would say my first impressions lined up with my end impressions. I also appreciate that the author went on tour close to me, in Appalachia, which is nice since the book is set in this region!

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually try to work through my galleys in the order I receive them, so I started reading SUGAR RUN when I found myself awake in the middle of the night and unable to go back to sleep. When I read the first few pages and realized that this was a lyrical novel with lovely prose and a loose plot about a woman who's just been released from prison, I thought maybe I should put it down and read something else. But I ended up reading it for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, and for days afterwards, and finished reading it in a bar surrounded by music and big tv screens, so you could say it took me by surprise with its quiet force.

I thought this would be the kind of book where not much happens, but I was wrong. An awful lot happens in this book, even if the first third is loose and meandering. I was entranced by Jodie, who went to prison for killing her girlfriend when she was only a teenager. Jodie knows the hard truths of the world but she survives on optimism that she can put right two wrongs: that she never got to do the one thing she and her girlfriend Paula planned to do, save Paula's little brother; and that she reclaim the land her grandmother left her in West Virginia coal country. Early in her quest, Jodie meets Miranda, a sunny and sad woman who has lost custody of her children. Jodie and Miranda are an unlikely pair and yet they find in each other something they haven't been able to find before, and they set out to create the new, better life they both dream of.

You shouldn't need me to tell you that it doesn't go according to plan, and that is where the book picks up narrative speed. Ricky, Paula's brother, is now an adult but not able to live on his own and Jodie doesn't really understand who he is and what traumas he's faced. Jodie has to face the realities of being out, being on parole, and trying to make a life for her new family in a world that doesn't want convicted felons to have a life, in a place where the families who have lived there for generations are being removed from their land for fracking. Everything is crumbling, but Jodie tries so hard to keep it all running. We also see flashbacks of Jodie's life with Paula, ultimately leading to the answer to the question of why Jodie killed her.

This is a beautifully written novel that cares deeply about its characters, though it's not the kind of book that is going to interpret their actions for you. Jodie and Miranda don't always understand why they do what they do, much of it is instinct or habit or addiction. I particularly enjoyed seeing the queer women in this book without having their queerness at the center of the story. It is a big part of the story, like any relationship would be, and the suspicions and obstacles queer people can face in small towns are part of the story, too. Feeling for Jodie, watching her try so hard, but seeing how despite her efforts everything falls through her fingers like sand was mesmerizing and heartbreaking.

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This debut novel isn't bad, but it's lacking a sense of urgency. Maren finds a poetic language to contrast the beauty of the natural world in Appalachia (threatened by fracking enterprises) with the decaying man-made structures and disenfranchised population (threatened by poverty). At age 17, our protagonist Jodi tried to flee the forlornness and emptiness, but things didn't turn out as the naive young girl hoped - fast forward: She spends 18 years in prison for murdering her girlfriend. We meet her when she's finally released and tries to build a new life, but who will hire a convicted murderer?

On the way back to her family in Appalachia, Jodi meets Miranda, the estranged wife of a former country star, who is also haunted by the mistakes she made in her teens: Jodi, Miranda (who brings along her three children) and the murdered girlfriend's abused brother decide to stick together and turn their lives around - but will these people who are all battling trauma and other powerful demons be able to break the cycle and fight the odds? Can people who have never learned coping mechanisms other than drugs or experienced loyalty be loyal to each other in a hostile environment?

Mesha Maren writes about people who are commonly referred to as "white trash", and she gives them dignity without excusing their mistakes. She doesn't judge, but illuminates the dynamics of poverty, neglect, subastance abuse, criminality, and governmental failure. Unfortunately, I never felt fully invested in the story, I was missing the intensity, passion and urgency the topic demands. If you compare "Sugar Run" to The Mars Room (also about a woman from the underclass who ends up a murderer) or Country Dark (also about the lack of perspective in Appalachia), it falls short, because Kushner and Offutt do a much better job charging up their texts with intense emotions regarding the problems they discuss, or in other words: They are less tame.

But "Sugar Run" is a debut novel, and Mesha Maren can certainly write: The way she changes back and forth between different timelines in this book is masterfully done. She also knows how to pick an interesting, relevant topic, so I am curious what she'll decide to do next.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the chance to read and review this ARC. Publication date January 8, 2019.

I am not sure exactly what it was that I was expecting or waiting for in this book, but it never seemed to materialize. For a debut novel there was plenty of action in the story, some good character development and a plausible plot, but for me it just missed the mark.

The story of a young Appalachian girl imprisoned for manslaughter. Once released she headed home to claim the land that had been in her family for generations, only to find that the homestead had been sold out from under her and the mountain was deeply involved in the fracking process. Hooking up with a tumultuous group of people, Jodie was never at peace.

I didn't care for the abrupt ending of the story and felt that there were still strings left dangling. I came away from this novel unfulfilled and a bit disappointed.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Sugar Run’ by Mesha Maren is her debut novel about thirty-five-year-old Jodi McCarty, released from Jaxton Prison after serving eighteen years. Jodi isn’t placed in a reentry program; just supervised release with scheduled check-ins with a parole officer. As Jodi leaves the prison where she’s been an inmate for the last eighteen years, she sees mountains and realizes that she never knew they existed here, in this particular place, having seen only the flatness of her exercise yard. This is a very deep foreshadowing by the author that Jodi will later bring to remembrance, symbolizing the way our perspective is skewed by both our environment and patterns of thinking.

Maren’s novel runs on two timelines; August 1988 thru June 1989, which follows Jodi in the beauty and heartache of her love affair with card shark and con, Paula Dulett, and July 2007 through September 2007, the aftermath of Jodi’s prison release and her attempts to rescue Paula’s brother, Ricky, now twenty-eight, and the forlorn Miranda Golden, in the process of a break-up with her husband, former celebrity singer Lee Golden. Maren beautifully builds suspense in both timelines. Because Jodi has been in prison, we know that the 88-89 timeline is going to end badly. In a way, Jodi is an innocent, sheltered from knowledge of the world by her long time in prison. Maren doesn’t expound on this, but presents it to the reader in Jodi’s expectations and the way Jodi experiences the world.

Abandoned at age seven by her parents to the care of her grandmother, Effie, Jodi is the very definition of an at-risk child. Only sixteen when Effie dies, there is no-one to rush in and fill the deficit of the only selfless love Jodi has ever known. Upon her prison release, the only support she has is the four hundred dollars her mother sends, a loan from her twin brothers and her father’s disability check. Like a homing pigeon, Jodi makes for the town where she was born in West Virginia. Along the way, Jodi tries to rescue Ricky, and then Miranda, with her brood of three little boys. She realizes she’s trying to build the family she hasn’t had since Effie died. When she begins to fall in love with Miranda, unforeseen complications abound. As Jodi is trying to find work and build a life for herself, I realize how marginalized the life of a felon is. The odds are truly stacked against them. When legitimate ways of making a living aren’t available, where does the ex-prisoner turn?

This novel is somewhat depressing. Because the number of people in prisons has grown so much, I can’t help but think of how many real-life stories there are that are similar in tone to this one. That doesn’t change the crimes, the pain inflicted, or the tragedy for many children who have a parent in prison. Mesha Maren is a truly gifted writer, however, and I was definitely buoyed by her gorgeous use of language. Very raw at times; at others, stunning with a metaphor or cutting with an illuminating quality that shone off the page. I felt Jodi’s heart path, her longing, her hopes. I wished the best for her. The significance of Maren’s last sentence is a little pop of an epiphany, a very satisfying ending.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mesha Maren’s Sugar Run is a women-on-the-run story times two. In 2007 Jodi McCarty has been released from prison in Georgia after serving 18 years for manslaughter, and joins up with Miranda, estranged wife of C&W singer and mother of three. In the backstory set in 1988, the 17 year-old Jodi dumps her chem teacher at a casino in Wheeling, West Virginia, for Paula, a tattooed professional gambler, embarking on a cross country expedition that takes them to Baja and back. When Paula’s poker-playing winnings prove inadequate, they turn to robbery; Jodi seems to have a talent for holdups. Jodi, Miranda, and the boys acquire Paula’s younger brother as a traveling companion and in Miranda’s Chevette(!) head for rural West Virginia, where Jodi hopes to raise livestock on a farmstead she inherited from her grandmother. She also has to report to a very negligent parole officer who tells her she is expected to undertake gainful employment as a condition for parole. Unfortunately, a woman with Jodi’s record is unemployable even at Walmart and MacDonald’s though I was cheered to discover that haulier was a possible career. Jodi’s mother, brothers and cousins have moved to town and become involved with drug dealing. And they’ve sold her inheritance to a Florida developer who intends to make it a fracking site. The West Virginia mountain setting is itself a major character—beautiful but crushing and cruel.

Both stories are essentially tragic romances. I felt Jodi’s sentence was much too hash—in England she would have served 10 years. But she learned self-control without losing her ability to love. At thirty-something Jodi is a mature romantic. When Jodi finds love she goes for it, headlong reckless. We can’t not know that the back story ended badly—else how would Jodi have ended up in prison—but we have to wait to the end to find out why. But will Miranda weaken; her ex still wants the children. The lesson in tragic romance is that love is insufficient without total honesty and integrity.

There are a few stock characters, like Farren the old mountain man, and Jodi’s druggie siblings are both stereotypes and unfortunately all too real. The liberal wealthy environmentalists (the sort you’d imagine having season tickets to Mountain Stage) who take up Jodi’s cause are a perfect cast for a satire. But the best character is Jodi herself. I loved and admired her and wanted her to have the life she deserved. Readers will probably have quite different responses to the ending. This is the kind of book you want to share with good friends and then stay up half the night talking with them about it. Definitely not a HEA, but I think not without hope. Fairly sure this will be one of my top reads for the year.

[Jason McKinney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm so glad to be done with this. I'm absolutely baffled as to how a 320 page book could feel so incredibly endless. Sugar Run? More like Molasses Crawl.

The writing is well done, particularly the descriptions of the Appalachian locale and the characters are well drawn, too. The problem is the narrative tension. There isn't any. The plot crosscuts between two time lines and every time one of them picks up momentum, we're drawn back to the other one and everything goes completely slack again.

Length was certainly not an issue here (which is a frequent complaint of mine), instead we needed much tighter writing. I almost gave up several times, but the characters are quite compelling. Thank the writing gods for that.

[Laura • lauralovestoread · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 3.75/5 stars for Sugar Run!!

I was due for a literary fiction novel and Sugar Run gave me just what I was looking for. Jodi and Miranda wind up on a road trip of sorts, as they make their way to Jodi’s grandmothers home in West Virginia. Maren gives readers a wonderful character study with Jodi, as we see a woman with so much grit and realness, yearning for a better life. Written in such lovely prose and dealing with the dynamics of poverty, drug abuse, incarceration, and government hardships. This story will stay with me a long time.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the beginning, I had the feeling that things were not going to turn out well for Jodi.

After serving eighteen years of a lifetime prison sentence, Jodi is free under supervised release. The jails are overcrowded, and she was only seventeen when convicted of killing her girlfriend Paula. She is given a bus ticket and sent into the world to report to her home district parole officer.

But Jodi instead takes a bus in the other direction, to save Paula's younger brother Ricky from their abusive father. Jodi meets Miranda, a needy young mother of three who latches onto Jodi like a drowning woman to a life raft.

This makeshift family--Miranda, her boys, and Ricky--travel with Jodi to her home in the Appalachian mountains where she hopes they can find a refuge. They move into Jodi's grandmother's abandoned cabin.

As the fracking operation pushes closer to them, Jodi's brothers draw her into their illegal activities and Miranda slips back to pills, while questions rise about Ricky.

In Sugar Run by Mesha Maren, an ominous cloud compelled me to turn pages. Backstory chapters reveal Jodi's story, and Miranda's and Ricky's stories are unraveled. It appears that their futures are mired in decisions made long ago.

The story ends with violence and heartache, but also with hope as Jodi realizes there is a future beyond home and it's web to the past.

This is an impressive first novel with memorable characters and polished writing.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read an excerpt at
https://d17lzgq6gc2tox.cloudfront.net...

There is something essential and powerful that keeps me coming back, and
I feel like Jodi and I both realized at some point that although the home
you’ve recalled so vividly during all your years away is a place that only truly
exists in your heart and your dreams, it will always be inextricably a part of
who you are.
from Montani Semper Liberi, an essay by Mesha Maren

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a disappointment. It was also a tad boring, surprising since the premise doesn't sound like that at all. The book starts with Jodi just being released out of jail after 18 years, early even, after killing her girlfriend Paula. The book slowly tells you the story of what led up to the shooting, was it an accident, or purposeful? The main part of the book is after she leaves jail. First she wants to get Paula's brother, to save him, as they had always planned. Along the way she picks up a new girlfriend, Miranda, plus her three kids. With all five stuffed in Miranda's car they go back to her grandmother's land in West Virginia Appalachian mountains, to start a new life.

It sounds interesting, but it wasn't. It fell flat. Whenever there was a little action, it kept being interrupted by another chapter break. We'd switch to the current or past, when it went back to the action well now that was moved past it. There was so much focus on driving, pills and drinking, oh and smoking cigarettes, maybe this is what the book is about. I wanted more about the land, the connection to it, and the fracking or other mining taking it away. Some of that was here, but again, it was subdued.

I almost stopped reading several times, and perhaps should have, but I'm curious and would wonder if it got any better. Not really. Not all books are wonderful and the duds make better books stand out even more. Go ahead and skip this one.

Book rating: 2 stars


I received a free copy of this book at a library conference. I was not required to write a review, but felt like it and, of course, the above opinions are my own.

[Marjorie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jodi McCarty is out of jail, after having spent 18 years imprisoned for manslaughter. She has only two things in mind – rescue her old lover’s brother, Ricky, from his abusive father and then go home to the land in West Virginia that her grandmother, Effie, left her. As she sets out to do that, she meets and falls in love with Miranda. Miranda has her own problems. She’s estranged from her husband, a washed-up singer, who has taken her three sons from her. Jodi and Miranda help each other and before long, she and now grown-up Ricky and Miranda and her three sons are living at Effie’s old home. Jodi is determined to build a better life for them all here on her grandmother’s land.

Ms. Maren is quite an accomplished writer and immediately pulled me into this intriguing story. A lot happens in this book and the plot covers small town bigotry, the awful destruction brought on by fracking, substance abuse, poverty, the love of land and the shifting of love. The language can be tough at times but that’s the type of book it is – gritty and raw and earthy. The language can also be stunningly beautiful. I admit that I was often turned off and angered by the decisions made by these characters, especially since children were involved. But then I’d see glimpses of the hope in Jodi’s heart and wanted things to work out for all of them.

I found this one hard to put down and am looking forward to seeing what’s next from this author. Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

[Jerrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason, I was never able to really become invested in the characters in this one. Jodi is released from prison as the book opens. She returns home, but picks up Miranda and her sons along the way. The story flashes back and forth between the past, where we learn why Jodi killed her former lover, and the present. The past doesn’t really seem to impact the myriad issues she faces once she’s released, however, so I’m not sure what that aspect added to the story. I also found the ending to be a bit of a let down.

[Joe · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book to be a huge disappointment. The narrative moves back and forth following Jodi before and after her release from prison.
The story is confusing at best and extremely unsatisfying. As I reached the end, I questioned why I had continued to read on. I have no satisfactory answer.

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

dang. i liked this so much. first, it's a really well told story of women-loving women. it's not corny, it's not chasey.... it's romantic and rompy and hardscrabble. both the women are hard-done-by west virginians, working class, with a punishing past, and they, well, they get together, and sort of build something. there's not much smooching or sexying, but there is something akin to love, a growing tenderness, and it's really nice, and well written.

but, also, the story is so well said. it's like maren is not even trying hard at all, like telling compelling stories with good turning points comes really easy to her, and if anything she needs to hold back. i love the characters, the pace, the children. it's really good. such a good book.

and of course it's also a story about the past catching up with us — the history of our lands, the history of our people. we do the best we can with what we've got, but what we've got is often not very good, and we can't get new material cuz it just isn't there. and still, still, we try.

fabulous storytelling. i'll read your next one in hardcover, mesha.

[Rhiannon Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Check out my full review on my blog: http://ivoryowlreviews.blogspot.com/2...

You know how I kept bitching about the repackaged and mass-produced mediocre stories that publishers are throwing mega marketing dollars at in hopes that some of it sticks and people will say they love it "because everyone else does"? Well...I just finished Sugar Run and *BOOM*...finally, a book with a backbone! In the vein of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone or Laura McHugh's Weight of Blood (read my review of Weight of Blood in The Glory Tree Herald here), Sugar Run is rural-noir at its gritty best. Full of characters scrambling to survive at the edges of society and its expectations, Sugar Run is pushed forward with a dual storyline: the first following seventeen-year-old Jodi and her girlfriend Paula through a downward spiral of drug-fueled poker binges in 1988 and the 2nd following Jodi's release from prison in 2007. Sugar Run is a glimpse into the shadows of rural Appalachia's underbelly, from the steady encroachment of a fracking operation (and its numerous seedy satellite industries) onto land that has been family-owned for generations to the daily minutiae of that land's poverty-stricken inhabitants. Mesha Maren's prose alternates between razor sharp statements that cut to the bone and descriptions that will sit heavy on your heart and mind.

This is a definite 5 star read from me! If you are ready for a book that is a detour from the mainstream monotony and you want to actually feel something--Sugar Run is for you!

[Margo Littell · Rating 4 out of 5]

At seventeen, Jodi was imprisoned for what she’s always maintained was a gun accident that left her girlfriend, Paula, dead. Now, released after serving eighteen years of her sentence, Jodi is free. She meets a wayward single mother, Miranda, who is barely managing to care for herself and three young sons. Miranda agrees to help Jodi keep the promise she made to Paula years ago: to rescue Paula’s little brother, Ricky, from their violent father. Of course, Ricky is no longer a scared child--he’s a grown man with anger and secrets of his own. This mismatched group returns to Jodi’s family land in West Virginia, even though the land isn’t actually hers any longer. Fracking is decimating the landscape; Jodi’s brother seems hell-bent on derailing her parole; and, despite her best intentions, Jodi finds herself wrestling with the fact that some people are not meant to be saved.

The ravaged land Jodi loves deftly echoes the scarred, damaged breadth of her own life. Time and again she opens herself up to love, only to be disappointed by others and herself. The beauty of the prose in Sugar Run offsets the blunt, harsh lives these characters blunder through, but the unsettling community forged by Jodi and the others is no guarantee of easier roads ahead.

***Review originally written for the City Book Review. I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.***

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing is gorgeous. I felt as though I were in West Virginia, marveling at the lush Appalachian Mountains. This is a story we don't often read about--what life is like for an ex-convict returning to life in rural Appalachia. The protagonist is gay an orientation that is dangerous in hillbilly country.

The story is about a woman who is released from prison after serving nearly 20 years. She has visions for a new life. But it seems that she is destined to repeat her past mistakes. Her metamorphosis at the end is striking. The last 20% of the novel reads like an adventure movie, jam-packed with action.

Having spent my childhood in eastern Tennessee in hillbilly country I had a particular affinity for this novel. Others may find the pace too slow in the beginning. I relished the descriptions of the mountains and verdant scenery.

More in depth review to follow.

[Nev · Rating 3 out of 5]

At seventeen years old Jodi McCarty was sentenced to life in prison. Eighteen years later in 2007 she’s released, giving her the freedom she never thought she’d have again. She goes looking for the brother of an old girlfriend and strikes up a relationship with a new woman as she tries to make a life outside of prison.

I definitely think there are some good parts to this book, but it didn’t end up working for me overall. I was expecting there to be way more of a focus on Jodi adjusting to how much the world changed in the time she was in prison. Massive changes happened from 1989 to 2007 but that wasn’t really touched upon. I was also expecting there to be more of a focus on her adjusting to her newfound freedom.

This isn’t a plot based novel, it’s very slow and meandering. But I also wouldn’t really call it a character study either. I still don’t really feel like I know Jodi or Miranda that well. Even though we see them in the present and in flashbacks, I don’t think I understand them that deeply.

I did think the book was well written, and that the reveal of what Jodi did to end up in prison was executed well. I look forward to reading more books from Mesha Maren in the future, especially if she continues to write about queer women in Appalachia.

[Lindsay Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every sentence is perfect. A book that lets you settle in and breathe, then knocks the breath right out of you.

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT

I'm starting this review when I'm on page 191 because I'm so irked by it all. This book is one long drawn out sigh.

Le sigh.

At page 191 I was going to rate two stars but after the "truth" about Jodi's charges, uh yeah no way in hell is that even fathomable. One star is too many.

None of it makes any damn sense. Folks, this is what happens when you have an inkling of a premise IDEA and then force characters into it. What do you get? A reactive "protagonist". Characters whose identities, attributes, and even names get all mixed up because they're so ambiguous. And a whole lot of nothing that goes no where.

If I learned anything from this book, it's that mountainfolk of WV are all undereducated simpletons. The men are abusive drug addicts or dealers. The women are all victims of their lives. Children don't need school and if they're taken out of it, nobody says a damn thing. If a 6 yr old causes the death of an infant then jumps out a window, the supervising adult walks away scot-free. A person can spend nearly two decades in prison and not only have zero PTSD or nightmares from the experience but can readjust to life outside perfectly fine after reminding herself that she likes to drive.

First off, somebody please tell me what newspaper in any point in history would print anything like those about Ricky and Paula's dead infant. Paula's father, in this paper, is quoted as saying about Ricky that "the little Bastard" had murdered her infant. Oh, really, newspapers quote what everybody said during the initial report, quote swears in a murder report, and provide details like blood pouring from a child's ears and eyes? Perhaps times were just that different in the 80s. I doubt it, but hey, sure I'll give the benefit of the doubt. But then that next clipping... you're screwing with me right? I mean, You HAVE to be screwing with me. The next report says all charges dropped because we don't know what 6 yr old Ricky did to kill that infant and we may never know. (SPOILER NEWSFLASH we never find out either). He can't be held responsible so end of story k bye. WHAT!? You mean to tell me that our protagonist spent EIGHTEEN YEARS in prison for manslaughter, but daddy dearest, who was in charge of said 6 yr old and infant, faced ZERO charges despite that, during his lack of supervision, an infant ended up dead and a 6 yr old jumped out of a window? No investigation as to whether it was true or if he was thrown from a window. No charges of manslaughter for the unsupervised infant that ended up dead. No charges of negligence that lead an unsupervised child to even have the chance to kill an infant. No charges of child abuse or neglect. Nothing. What fantasy world is this??? Maybe it's the fact that the sheriff shared the same last name as the family, and Jodi ponders this possible relation briefly, but then nothing ever comes up again about it. It seems everybody is screwed up, suffers no real consequences, the law can just be written off and nobody questions it and we're just supposed to accept this as realistic.

I hate everybody in this book. When I can even keep track of all the damn names. Jodi, Paula, Ricky/Patrick, Bella, Miranda, Lee, Tamara, Irene, Andy, Donnie, Dennis, AJ, Ross, Rosalba, Kaleb, and on and on and on. There are so many first names thrown in that for the first time, I struggled remembering who was who. I kept mixing up Donnie and Dennis and kept forgetting all the men's women's names. And don't get me started on Jodi referring to her parents by their first names to top it all off. I kept thinking maybe she had issues with her dad and Irene was his second wife and that being the reason. Nope. It felt more so like the author had a list of character names to use, forced them all in, and couldn't be bothered to remember that real people sometimes refer to others by mom and dad or anything of the sort.

I can't tell if the author is writing any of this from experience or not. Her bio on the book only lists all of her awards and nothing of anything personal so for all I know she never lived in a small podunk poor town. Because I have. And yes, poor people sometimes make poor choices and drink, steal, repeat. But literally every single person in this book are all POSs. Absolute train wrecks. Not a single redeeming anybody around. But it's because they're all poor in a small town that's how it is. Um no. All the men are abusive dead beat a-holes. All the women are just along for the ride and victims of their poor choices at the hands of men or other misguided women. Moral of the story we're all victims and it's nobody's fault, especially not our own. Everybody smokes and drinks CONSTANTLY. There's nobody trying to make better for themselves, nobody trying to overcome their circumstances. The book is literally about different people all driving to different places doing a whole lot of nothing, pissing through last dollars and cigarettes, and reacting to minor changes in the environment.

The best way I could sum this up is this: this is a book written by a landscape painter who was told that in order to be a famous artist, they need to switch over to portrait painting instead. The author can describe BEAUTIFUL scenery, but within the context of these cardboard characters that fit the stereotype of what the upper class sees in poor people, and within the lack of plot, the beautiful scenery is a mountain-scape background in an otherwise trash movie made with a cellphone.

Like I said, I can't tell if the author has any experience in living in the setting among the types of characters in this book, but as someone who has, it felt more like someone's IDEA of what poor mountain people do in their free time. Like, drug addicts, convicts, and thieves do other things like work and go to church or OH YEAH MAYBE SCHOOL. Like HELLO you supposedly care about these boys so much that they just HAVE to be with you, never mind education, proper medical treatment (because, you know, when a deep wound is infected, to fix it all you have to do is remove the stitches and the infection will disappear like magic). If these kids were all taken out of school, the school system alone would have the law on their asses. I just don't even know what to make of this. Frequently people are called "privileged" if they aren't unemployed and high on something. Never mind that these people could have just as screwed up pasts as anybody else but because they have their shit together, they are labeled as privileged. So basically there are two camps in this book. The privileged and the drug addicts who just try to do right by doing literally nothing at all. Ever. Except eat hot dogs, smoke, pop pills, buy more alcohol, and drive aimlessly.

Look, my husband's family is from WV. Hubby and I married in the mountains of WV on his family's former land that had been theirs for generations but is now a little log cabin-turned church. We grew up in the town that became known as the center of the great recession. We know mountainfolk of WV, we know small town troubles, we know hard life with difficult choices and too much substance abuse and we sure as hell know what it means to be poor. This book is filled with more of a stereotype than any real people. I guess what bothers me the most is just how far from reality everything is in this book. From the people to the circumstances to the stereotypical poor mountainman who abuses his family and is a drunk to the cliche single mom with three kids and a prick of an ex to the rockstar who can't get over not being famous anymore to the convict who can't overcome... I could go on and on.

The writing just doesn't mesh with the character or story whatsoever. You've got flowery language of a third person narrator and a hick trashy story being told by it. It just doesn't mesh. I don't even know how to describe it. Maybe imagine a highly educated fairy floating above and reporting the goings-on in a crack house. That's what this feels like.

But even the writing is so all over the place. Commas where missing in half the places, making everything read awkwardly or sentences out of order and illogical. This one gave me pause and a good laugh: "In addition to tobacco, Rosalba kept in her backpack playing cards decorated with images of Catholic saints and a bottle of tequila." page 164. It took me a second to realize the saints were not each holding their own tequila bottles. There were several sentences structured like this where I had to reread it to figure out what was supposed to be really happening. Granted, my book is an ARC so perhaps this was fixed before final printing, and if so, completely disregard this paragraph.

These characters lack a human element. Everybody trusts complete strangers and nothing ever goes awry. Miranda gets humiliated on stage? Go hitch a ride with a trucker and move in with his sister. Guy shows up in the front yard with a shotgun? Go berry picking with him. Oh and bring three young children along too. Want to go out drinking with your brothers but have those pesky kids to deal with? Leave them with the woman your brother dropped off because she has no papers and fled from the cartel. She ran her hand through one of the kid's hair, so she's cool.

I kept hoping for an Erin Brockovich type story. Poor women with children overcome their shortcomings in life by taking on the fracking industry and winning. Like studying up, fighting with the activists, maybe even being a spy in the ranks, working on the fracking site while saving up money to buy back Effie's land then WHAM using insight to build an EPA case against the frackers. But no. We get child abuse and neglect, drugs and alcohol galore, and driving around and smoking. I am pretty sure cigarettes/smoking and every variation of those words appeared more often than the protagonist's name. To be fair, there are something like 20+ different first names dropped in the book so there isn't much room for the protag's name or anything else besides the details of every single characters chain smoking habit. Ugh my lungs hurt just reading this.

Can somebody explain to me how kidnapping and holding a hostage and then killing your gf in jealous cold blood gets one a manslaughter charge? W(in)T(actual)F did I just read? How was none of that mentioned anywhere in the book? How are we supposed to just take in this last minute reveal and be like 'oh, okay, somehow cold blooded murder and kidnapping and cross country robbery can magically transform into manslaughter.' There are severe issues here that we needed discussed! Are we supposed to somehow surmise that the omniscient narrator didn't know there were more charges or that it wasn't mere manslaughter as if Jodi had been lying to the all-knowing nameless third person narrator? Of course not. So we're supposed to genuinely believe that those charges magically turned into manslaughter. COME ON. She was dirt poor with dirt poor family. Don't tell me she magically acquired a great attorney to sleep with the jury and judge to get that kind of charge. I just don't understand how these details were allowed to be left without clarification and yet all the grueling amounts of details on smells and colors in the air and how much smoking happened were the necessary bits left in. I don't even know what to do with this. I can't really be expected to just roll with this can I? Is this some joke and I missed the punchline?

Ending was sorta uh... 'oh hey look out there, there's a world out there and I don't have to stay in my old life. The end.' Ehhhh....

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 17 year old is locked away for life, only to be granted early release. As she makes her way to her beloved patch of land in West Virginia, she comes across a young mother, desperate to reunite with her small sons. Add addictions, pills, fracking, more pills, scientology, country music, gambling, drugs (and not just pills), parole officers, rich hippy, messy family dynamics, poor choices, late 1980s, 2007, and scrappy optimism, and you on your way to your own Sugar Run.

[Monica Kim | Musings of Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the far side the view was nothing but ridgelines, the craggy silhouettes rising up against the night sky like the body of some dormant god. Jodi felt her breath go tight in her chest. This road went only one way, it seemed, in under the mountains until you were circled. — Mesha Maren, Sugar Run
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I can’t quite articulate why I liked Mesha Maren’s “Sugar Run,” one of “My Most Anticipated Books of Winter 2019” so much, but this was one bleak, but engrossing Southern noir that drew me in front the start. searing, gritty, darkly atmospheric with exquisite prose, it’s a solid debut novel, and the writing was fantastic!
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The novel weaves between two timelines, story jumps back-and-forth from present and 20 years before, following the lives of two women — Jodi, fresh out of prison after an 18-year sentence for killing of her girlfriend & desperate to escape her messy past & start fresh, and Miranda, a troubled young mother of three living in a motel, who just left an abusive relationship set against grim rural West Virginia. The story slowly unfolds as Jodi is released from prison and recollect events from her past that landed her in prison. Before heading back home in the Appalachian Mountains for a fresh start, Jodi first sets out South in search of someone she left behind twenty years ago. During that road trip, she meets Miranda, and they quickly become infatuated with each other and plans a future together without really understanding what they’re getting into.
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With Miranda’s car, they first “pick up” her three children who lives with their dad after school and finds the person Jodi was searching for, then heads back to family house Jodi inherited from grandma, Effie. However, when they get to the house, jodi learns that land no longer belongs to her due to unpaid property taxes, which was sold while she was in prison, and is also in danger of being destroyed by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” as many of the surrounding properties have already been devastated by this form of drilling. Jodi runs into problem after problem as she tries to rebuild her life, and with a criminal record & never being employed before, she struggles to find an employment. Miranda is a whole set of problems of in itself, and there is Jodi’s homophobic brother who ask her for dangerous favors in exchange for some money & is disgusted by her relationship with Miranda.
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Maren deftly incorporates love story of two damaged, troubled souls with issues surrounding poverty in rural America into her narrative — limitations on upward mobility for the underprivileged, drug dealing and addiction, lack of jobs & opportunities, fracking, bigotry, and gun violence. Characters are well-developed, description of surrounding so vivid, and it’s written with keen insight & full heart, author made me feel like I was in walking in characters’ shoes. difficult, dark read, and definitely not your next beach read as the story ends in heartache and violence, but it’s fascinating & powerful and that writing, so good! Highly recommend it! 🤓✌️📖

[Jessica Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the heart of this gritty debut is a damaged woman seeking redemption. Jodi has just been released from prison after 18 years. Her goal is to return home to land she grew up on in the Appalachian mountains, but not until she finds Ricky, the mentally disabled younger brother of her former lover, Paula.

Along the way, she meets Miranda, a young mother of three boys who has faced her own set of challenges. Together, they seek to build a life together, though there’s a sense that they’re doomed from the very start—weighed down by their circumstances and the demons from their past.

Sugar Run alternates between this present storyline and Jodi’s past life with Paula, unraveling the details of what happened between the two of them and why Jodi landed herself in prison for manslaughter.

I liked how this novel centered women who are in many ways the product of their unfortunate circumstances without making excuses for their actions. Maren keeps the perspective objective, unsentimental and without judgment, similarity to The Mars Room. That said, there was something that kept me from ever becoming fully invested in these characters. The plot moves forward slowly and without a lot of tension. I wasn’t always convinced by the main characters’ choices and interactions, nor did I find all of the side characters necessary.

There’s promise here, for sure. The themes and tone are there, but the lack of focus and narrative tension kept it from reaching its full potential.

*Thanks to Algonquin Books for this ARC!*

[Kristina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty depressing and just didn’t go anywhere. Jodi has just gotten paroled and basically falls right back into her old ways, even when trying her best not to. While that is believable, she quickly falls into a relationship with a woman that i just do not understand the allure/connection and all the drama associated with it. Could have been an interesting book on how it is extremely difficult to go back to the straight and narrow from a rural area and being a felon. The lack of legit opportunities for someone is staggering. The plot line around the book otherwise was underwhelming.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The darkness shrieks like a guitar whine, slow and sultry until the loudness overtakes everything else that is expertly revealed. The prose is mind-blowing, turning over and over, not one word too many, opening up every aspect and emotion of these women’s lives. The story itself is a heady mix of Orange is the New Black, Jar of Hearts, and The Wildlands, touched with A Star is Born (2018), shaken and dropped into super-small-town, drug-riddled America. This book is all too timely, displaying how wisely craft can be used to get right to the heart, of both the reader and the characters, as the words twist the knife of misery and quiet surprise.

The chapters flit between the pasts and melded present of Miranda, an on/off drug addict, mother of 3, and estranged wife of washed up musician, Lee Golden- and Jodi, a recently released convict, thrown into jail as a minor where she stayed for 18 years. Ever so slowly the truth of what led Jodi to kill in 1989 is shown, how her involvement with Paula ruined her, and how she hides it from Miranda, her new lover, will likely lead to the demise of their fresh relationship as well.

Her first act on parole is to find Paula's younger brother Ricky, and save him, finally, from the abusive household the pair had been originally saving for in the first place nearly 20 years before. Next she will find a lawyer to help her figure out how to settle the tax disputes over her grandmother's land in the West Virginia hills so that she and Ricky and Miranda and her brood of boys can have a safe place to escape to. Before they can settle in though, Jodi has to confront her new reality of being unable to even get a job at Walmart due to her record, and likely rely on her homophobic drug dealing brother just to stay afloat.

Though there are a handful of shocking situations Jodi and the others get into, even they are simultaneously quiet and loud, subtle but scary, and shouldn't they be as, despite the persistent threat of either prison (or death) hover over their heads, they're going to do whatever they can to stay together and stay alive on that mountain, on Jodi's family's land, somewhere between sober and inebriated, somewhere far from stability or happiness. Maren is a beast with words and I can't wait to see what else she produces.