Vera Violet

by Melissa Anne Peterson, Gianluca Testani (Translator)

Set against the backdrop of a decaying Pacific Northwest lumber town, Vera Violet is a debut that explores themes of poverty, violence, and environmental degradation as played out in the young lives of a group of close-knit friends. Melissa Anne Peterson’s voice is powerful and poetic, her vision unflinching.

Vera Violet recounts the dark story of a rough group of teenagers growing up in a twisted rural logging town. There are no jobs. There is no sense of safety. But there is a small group of loyal friends, a truck waiting with the engine running, a pair of boots covered in blood, and a hot 1911 with a pearl pistol grip.

Vera Violet O’Neely’s home is in the Pacific Northwest—not the glamorous scene of coffee bars and craft beers, but the hardscrabble region of busted pickups and broken dreams. Vera’s mother has left, her father is unstable, and her brother is deeply troubled. Against this gritty background, Vera struggles to establish a life of her own, a life fortified by her friends and her hard-won love. But the relentless poverty coupled with the twin lures of crystal meth and easy money soon shatter fragile alliances.

Her world violently torn apart, Vera is forced to leave everything behind and move to St. Louis, Missouri. She settles into a job at an inner-city school where she encounters the same disarray of community. And alone in her small apartment, Vera grieves. She thinks about her family and the love of her life, Jimmy James Blood. In this brilliant, explosive debut, Melissa Anne Peterson establishes herself as a fresh, raw voice, a writer to be reckoned with.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Coming Of Age, Ebooks, Contemporary, Audiobook, Adult

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2011

About the author

Melissa Anne Peterson grew up in a rainy logging town in Washington State. She received a BA/BS degree in writing and biology from The Evergreen State College and an MS degree in Environmental Writing from the University of Montana. She has worked in endangered species recovery and pollution monitoring in Washington and Montana for 12 years. Her writing has been published by Camas Magazine, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, Oregon Quarterly, and Seal Press. Her first novel, Vera Violet, was published by Counterpoint Press in February of this year.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of a loyal group of friends who, in life, have been dealt a raw and violent hand. Growing up in a small logging community in Washington state where hope was abandoned long ago. Poverty, racism, and methamphetamine ring true. This is all they know and they are well aware that this is all they will ever have.

Welcome to David, Washington:

"Unemployment rates in logging towns jumped above state and national levels. The economy moved out. Methamphetamines moved in. Logging roads were closed to the public. Meth labs were expensive to clean up. Dealers left the waste behind when they were done. There were abandoned travel trailers and buckets of foul-smelling liquid that could kill. Workers in hazard suits cleaned it up. Rates of domestic violence rose. Families became fractured. The rain poured down relentlessly. But there were some things the water just could not wash away."

And at the heart of this story is the love of Vera Violet and Jimmy James Blood.

Melissa Anne Peterson penned a vicious tale. The writing is absolutely exquisite. I could have highlighted nearly every sentence in this book. This was not a feel good story nor was it an easy one to read but I am so happy that I did. This is a voice that demands to be heard and I encourage those that can handle the pitch black bleakness of this novel to pick this one up. 4 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Counterpoint Press for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Chris LaTray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love so much about Vera Violet. I love the familiarity of its setting. I love its gritty story of people—my people—resigned to essentially having to choose from a forest of opportunities, most of which are bad. I love the voice of our narrator, for whom the book is named after. I love the story of the book's author, debut novelist Melissa Anne Peterson, and her path to publication with none of the bonafides of the "typical" debut author. That makes her one of my people too. Finally, I love knowing I've got a new book to recommend all through 2020 and a new writer to mention right up there with the likes of some of my other favorites of the style, people like Willy Vlautin, Daniel Woodrell, and Larry Brown. Melissa Anne Peterson more than holds her own against those dudes.

[Jim Thomsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hopelessness peeked into every window. It sniffed at welcome mats, stuck its long fingers into the cracks in the walls. It whispered like breezes. Rusty vehicles broke down. The Cota kids started looking tired. Desperation came in on the bottom of our shoes after a hard day. It was swallowed with our beer. It was everywhere—in every board and sheet of drywall, every piece of worn carpet, every speck of dirt and defeated dream. It dripped through the leaky roofs. It hovered over unopened mail—the bills that piled up on the cinder block furniture. Drugs crept up on our backs and took over quickly. They would not give up. They laughed and screamed in ecstasy at our attempts to free ourselves."

"We listened to a journalist who tried to explain “Seattle grunge music” as a political movement. He called it “the voice of a generation.” We thought that was silly. Because we knew that grunge was the sound of a screaming saw blade, a spawning salmon flicking gravel. It looked like a clear-cut. And if you cracked grunge open, you would find a moldy fifth-wheel trailer inside."

I don't know if VERA VIOLET is a great novel. I don't know if it's not a great novel. I don't even know if it's a novel. I came to VERA VIOLET because I like crime fiction and because it was recommended in roundups of coming novels by some crime-fiction websites I follow, but while it's (possibly) a novel and has a lot of crime — and just about everything in it IS a crime — I don't know that it's a crime novel, either, not in any way I recognize crime novels.

What it seems more to me than anything is a piece of journalism in poetic form, a sort of spiritual descendent of a Gil Scott-Heron pre-rap rap in the novel-length form of something like "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." It's slam poetry, a rhythmic and controlled rant, a dispatch from the front lines of poverty and despair and rain and abandoned trailers. The writing is exquisite, and there's a story, and a sort-of structure, with characters who have beginnings, endless middles and sometimes abrupt ends.

I have no idea if I love it. I do know that I read it, that I sort of know what it's about — I'm from Kitsap County, not far from where most of VERA VIOLET takes place, and have worked at newspapers in a few of those poverty-scragged towns — and I do know that Melissa Anne Peterson knows what those places are about far better than I do. And I wasn't bored. Restless, yes, but in a good way, my senses heightened to a state of alertness I rarely achieve through more conventionally structured fiction. The bottom line? I wasn't a bit comfortable reading VERA VIOLET, but I'm glad I gave myself over to my discomfort.

[Addie BookCrazyBlogger · Rating 1 out of 5]

In reading this novel, I have to wonder if the author has ever been to St. Louis or even looked at a map of St. Louis. Violet allegedly lives on Ivanhoe Street-which is maybe a mile away from my house. She claims the street is by Lafayette park (it isn’t). She claims Shenandoah Ave is the cross street (it is most definitely not). She talks about Northside (not bothering to differentiate between county and city) as though it’s right next to East St. Louis-which is literally across an entire big ass river called the Mississippi River. BECAUSE IT’S A CITY IN ILLINOIS. She compares it to Violet’s hometown, a rural town in Washington state by talking about how the land barons used up the resources of their great state and split when the profits stopped. That *never happened* in St. Louis. There’s enormous issues of racial segregation, defunding of public programs and public schools, the inability for county and city to merge-and those are just a few glaring differences because (shocker) St. Louis is not and was never a rural city. If being distracted by the novel’s inaccuracies wasn’t enough, the novel itself confused me. Past and present were jumbled up with no clear transitions, defining character backgrounds as a reader was virtually impossible and figuring who was a main character or a side character was like wading through black Jell-o. It was distracting, it was muddy and it didn’t even taste good. I’m gonna go ahead and nope my way out of this attempted novelization of Winter’s Bone. My suggestion is to stick to the movie and skip this book.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the gritty story about Vera Violet, her family and her hardscrabble group of friends in the Pacific Northwest. They’re losing their land, their jobs and their basic will to live which is how they all wind up living as if there is no tomorrow. Some turn to drugs, others violence and a few have just given up hope. I liked this book well enough but found myself distracted and had to reread Part 1. The story seemed to drag a little bit in the middle. Still a story that captured my attention and left me wanting more from this author.
Thanks to GoodReads for having this giveaway and Counterpoint Press for sending me this book for an honest review! This book will be released February 4th, 2020.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak, raw story of growing up in a poverty stricken rural area of the Pacific Northwest where there are few options for escape. Despite the dark subject, Peterson’s writing (and Cassanda Campbell’s narration on the audiobook) is lovely and lyrical, and readers will care deeply about what happens to Vera Violet.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, passionate, violent, local. This small-press novel offers a glimpse of life and poverty in Shelton, WA. There's a paragraph I want to quote, but the whole book is awesome and inspiring:

"Every night, Colin and I wallked through the neighborhoods along Cota Street. We wanted to know that these houses mattered - that there was a difference between depth and dominance. We watched each light and intersection. We viewed every tourist restaurant and failing business. Outside of Cota Street, there was always opposition and blame. There were rich kids at the skate park in Olympia, fair weather punk rockers outside shows at the Capitol Theater, hippie snobs who bought drugs from us, tourists who only drove through our town without stopping. I often grew angry and violent at their casual dismissal. At how things did not actually touch them. I placed myself inches from their faces and said, 'I'll take you there - past the Crab Apple Apartments where the heroin grows wings, down by the railroad tracks to watch the dead men wander. I'll walk with you where I come from. I'll show you the houses that burned down without stopping, the condensation on the trailer windows. I'll show you the places I've seen.'"

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the saddest and best books I've ever read. Possible spoiler ... OK so I was thinking pon it in the shower right after I'd finished and I said out loud "Well, were they Nazis?!" And then I thought, damn, this book was really super good enough to have me thinking about possible Nazis and not even ruin my overwhelming enjoyment of it. But also in the shower, I was thinking, and I think I have it figured out.

Maybe they WEREN'T Nazis but that they were members of Project Mayhem?! That's got to be it! The timeframe (late 90s) & location (Pacific Northwest) both are perfect for the boys' shaved heads and their middling interest in anarchy politics.

This book was great.

[Noel Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about the trials of growing up in a working class, blue collar town with a struggling economy. The author is deeply engaging with the descriptions of dramas of adolescence playing out in the schoolyards and at home. I especially liked when the lead character reached for freedom from the dreary darkness of the western Washington logging town with a pilgrimage to eastern Montana. Highly recommend for anyone interested in an in-depth exploration of small town life in the Pacific Northwest.

[Agathafrye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Missy Anne can write her ass off. Shelton, Washington's version of Bastard Out of Carolina. A beautiful, restless, troublesome book.

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't really like the story of this one (although I didn't hate it, either), I love the character of Vera Violet, and the writing style. I'll definitely check out more by this author.

[Ariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It’s form is impossible to separate from the thick growth of western Washington, knotted together and impossible to follow a single thread until you reach the root. It’s a complex web, but it all flows and grows together. A really wonderful read.

[Tobi · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best novel about working class northwest youth.

Jimmy James Blood by Missy Anne is a self-published first novel from a local Mason County author. The Total Bummer Bookclub called Jimmy James Blood "Shelton, Washington's version of Bastard Out of Carolina" and that's pretty accurate. It is a working class coming of age story that uses the natural landscape of the pacific northwest to explore the theme of poverty and environmental destruction familiar to those of us who grew up in logging/timber towns. In that sense, it is very similar to The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy but also reminds me of Winter's Bone or maybe The Beans of Egypt, Maine. There's a little bit of S.E. Hinton or Over The Edge at work too but without the sappy romanticism. For me it evokes the heartbreakingly tragic Jon Jost movie The Bed You Lie In most of all, which remains the harshest yet most true-to-life portrayal of the northwest I have yet seen captured on film. The book really takes it to another level when the main character escapes to St. Louis where she learns about urban poverty. Shelton is just up the highway from Aberdeen. Missy Anne is the literary voice of the dispossessed working class NW youth that we've come to know so well through song. Intrigued? You should be! This is a fantastic book. I read the entire thing in one sitting. I still can't believe I know the person who wrote it.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw an early preview for Vera Violet and it immediately captured my attention. Set in a dying lumbar town in Washington, it follows a young woman and her friends as they navigate a changing environmental and economical landscape.

This book is bleak, it is devastatingly sad, and absolutely haunting. It is all of these because through this group of friends we are able to see the repercussions of a broken economy, lack of stable employment, dismantled families, and the rise of crystal meth. It also speaks to life in a small town that is decided by those who have and those who do not.

I will be honest there are no happy endings in this book and that feels true to the story told. This is not a light read and yet it is an absolutely compelling one. I found myself picking it up every free moment I had so I could learn more about Vera, her brother, and her friends. When I finished the book I thought about how this story plays out in so many rural communities today, except instead of logging it could be farming, it could be manufacturing and instead of crystal method it could be fentanyl.

Vera Violet is not only a 5 star read for me, it is one that I suspect will stay with me for a long time.

[Pamela Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've lived in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) for most of my adult life, several decades now. But unless one has lived as a child and a teenager in a location, the place has not become internalized as it does through the osmosis of growing up there. Well now I feel I understand parts of the PNW in a visceral way that I didn't before. To open the pages of this book and start to read is to wash along on waves of words, moving with the current. I just had to give myself up to the experience. The author, presumably very young herself, seamlessly integrates the qualities of the land, vegetation, animals, and climate of the PNW with the post-logging economy and the effects of that on, especially, the rural youth living there. Suffice to say, the effects are not -- at this point in time -- for the better. But how else, other than experiencing this torrent of a book, could I ever have come to feel the despair of these youth trying to survive far outside the corridors of wealth here? I highly recommend this book for its poetic language and understanding of youth searching for hope.

[Christie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gritty, raw story provides readers with an authentic perspective of the grim realities associated with rural small-town poverty. The hopelessness that swarms around this story stings each teen character over and over, as even the most resilient gradually give in to the evils of meth. So much of the story juxtaposes the natural deep woods earthiness, sometimes even pristine, of the past with the crumbling hope of 1990s depressed logging town.

The town is Shelton, Washington which Peterson names instead after the founder's (David Shelton) first name David. All else in this story is so true to the town. Cota Street for 50-60 years has been, tragically, a metaphorical dead-end street. Goldsborough Creek runs just a few blocks behind Cota where bodies have been found.

Her descriptions of both the settings and hollow life were so gripping and real.

The slight hope that prevails in this story is how many characters wrote: they wrote journals and poetry and quoted great literature. I found this to be a note of hope.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't let the title fool you! Vera Violet is no sweet flower and her world is no garden. Ms. Peterson has penned a raw, unfiltered view of the aftermath of logging on small towns in the Pacific Northwest. Really this story could have been about many coal mining towns or even some manufacturing towns. To further deepen the book's impact, the main character, Vera, leaves the ravaged PNW and her family and friends who are struggling with drug dependence, unemployment, and poverty to head east. She travels from rural poverty to urban poverty after finding the projects in St. Louis and teaching in a school full of minority kids. There was a bit of confusion as the story jumps quickly and frequently between time and place. It almost felt like the story was being pulled forcibly from the author. For me, this added to the realism of Violet and her struggles.

Thanks to NetGalley and Counterpoint Press for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.

[L.T. Fawkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy reading mainly easy junk, this book isn't for you. If you're on the lookout for contemporary literature - a gripping story told in a unique, brilliant, disturbing, challenging narrative voice, you gotta read this book.

It's a gripping story of poverty, hopelessness, homelessness. Coming of age feeling worthless and meaningless. Fighting for dignity and survival against insurmountable odds.

Missy Anne is one hell of a writer. Can't wait for her next one.

And I can't help making a remark about the contribution Kindle is making to literature. This novel, in the hands of an editor, would have been polished and smoothed and possibly, in the process, ruined. What a pleasure it was to read it in all its raw glory as the author intended.

[Whit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vera Violet is the sad reality that many would like to turn a blind eye to. The raw emotion on each page is tough to read at times. The rural violence and drug use amongst a group of friends in this dark book leaves my spirit feeling exhausted and troubled on this gloomy Friday morning.


The sheer description of extreme poverty and addiction Peterson voices on each page cannot be ignored. The story is one that is necessary in today’s climate. The world is broken and she portrays the rugged edges in disturbing realism all while keeping her writing beautiful through the pain of each chapter.


I think it’s worth the read.


I voluntarily read and reviewed a giveaway copy of this book from @counterpointpress

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Put this one down after 30 pages the first time I picked it up (at start of shelter in place). Within the haze of corona, I was put off by the disjointed story telling and dark content. Picked it back up a few weeks later and came to be captivated by the hypnotic prose and unique story-telling. It is not until late in the book that Peterson's meta-narrative comes together, but their is much to be savored in each individual story as she builds and layers. Ultimately, she manages to tell a deeply disturbing and violent tale with beauty and sensitivity. And, my experience with this book reminded me that my reaction to art is often as much about me at the moment of consumption as it is about the art itself.

[Linda Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tough times have come to the Pacific Northwest timber towns, once thriving and filled with the bustle of families going about their daily lives to support the folks in the timber industry. Now, buildings are dilapidated and the town is half-empty. There’s not much for young people to look forward to or to do at all. When drugs get involved, there’s no turning back. As Vera flees the only home she has ever known, she moves to St. Louis and takes a job in the city at a school. But all she sees around her is a reminder of what she has lost. This is a poignant, sincere debut novel by a writer destined to make a name for herself. You should get in on the beginning!

I met this book at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a forested rural town by the Skohomish River, Vera Violet O'Neel lives in a community rampant with poverty and methamphetamines. If you're from Cota Street, you know how to fight to stay alive. As she makes an escape to St. Louis, she gradually unveils the bits and pieces that make up the violence and tragedies among enemies and loved ones alike that drove her to make a run for it. Peterson's descriptions of Pacific Northwest living and the struggles of addiction are accurate, capturing the roughness of difficult upbringings and the rustic surroundings where it all takes place. Grungy and gorgeously written.

[Lyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seemed like it may be an okay book ultimately, but it wasn't interesting enough in the beginning. I read a quarter of the book, and it was only in the last couple of pages that it said who a couple of the characters it'd been talking about the whole time were - not all of them, mind you, but a couple. Others, I still don't know. It really wasn't clear to me that the story was going to go anywhere, which is why I only read a quarter of it. It was well written, but a quarter of the book is too much for not getting anything at all.
Note: I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.

[Daeg Aerlic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel dug itself into a deep part of my memory, snuck it’s way in with emotional honesty, and still sits there in my mind as though it had always been there. The author tells a love story in between her words, the way a good musician uses silence in composition. This is a rare, brave, and beautiful novel. The setting is a character of its own: giving, abused, enraged, indifferent, forgiving, taken for granted, sorely missed, forever resilient. The voice is perfectly held within the setting, going from stream of thought to steady prose and back, taking you behind the words into a story that urgently wants you to understand things that it mustn’t risk telling you. Read this book!

[Missy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Vera Violet" is a heartbreaking tale of the rural logging town in Washington.

"I am a fighter. I was born for this."

A group of rough teenagers who had to leave their homes and move to a street where drugs were common and the violence was bad on the streets. The logging company shut down and skipped town owing the people money.

"Dad told me how rednecks were workers of all skin colors who protested unfair treatment. These words shouldn't hurt you."

Thank you to Publisher and NetGalley for the eARC

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book hit me like a sledgehammer. At the beginning (which is actually the ending) I was very curious about what had happened, and I really loved the nostalgic feel of the storytelling, Vera looking back on things, full of anger. As the book went on, and each of the individual stories unfolded, it was just heartbreaking. Very raw, gritty, and full of anguish. Hard to get through at times, because it was just so bleak and hard to envision a silver lining or happy ending. I went back and re-read the first chunk after finishing, which did give a little more closure than the actual last page.

[Vera · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because my first and middle names are the same as the title of the book. That’s as good a reason as any, right? Some of the writing was beautiful and my hat’s off to the author. The subject matter was just so sad. Glad I read it because I would have always wondered. I’m glad I borrowed it from the library and I’m glad it’s over. How many of you have read a book whose title matches your name … first name AND middle name?!? Pretty unique, right?!

[Chris Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

The novel, and or state of,
is a nasty bit of vapidness,
and comes nearest to espousing on,
aluminum siding, dead robots
and vaporized cult leaders.

#poem

Chris Roberts, Patron Saint to the Smoke Stack People

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavy. I don’t know why she went back. But she did; I guess it’s grounds for a sequel we’ll see.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a raw, passionate portrayal of the desperate lives of kids growing up too fast in a logging town in Northwest Washington. I will never think of Washington the way I did before.