Indigo Field

by Marjorie Hudson

"Indigo Field brims with multigenerational drama, earthy spirituality, and deeply imagined characters you are unlikely to forget." —Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Invention of Wings, The Book of Longings, and The Secret Life of Bees

In the rural South, a retired colonel in an upscale retirement community grieves the sudden death of his wife on the tennis court. On the other side of the highway, an elderly Black woman grieves the murder of her niece by a white man. Between them lies an abandoned field where three centuries of crimes are hidden, and only she knows the explosive secrets buried there. When the colonel runs into her car, causing a surprising amount of damage, it sparks a feud that sets loose the spirits in the Field, both benevolent and vengeful. In prose that’s been called “dazzling” and “mesmerizing,” in the animated voices of trees and birds and people, in Southern-voiced storytelling as deeply layered as that of Pat Conroy, Marjorie Hudson lays out the boundaries of a field that contains the soul of the South, and leads us to a day of reckoning.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club

410 pages, Paperback

Published March 14, 2023

About the author

New: Audio Book available - 50% DISCOUNT THROUGH MAY 20, 2024

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A Native American child burial is found in a cliff by the river, revealing dire Southern history and raising vengeful spirits. Three families' lives are turned upside down - they will not survive the coming storm without joining forces.

"Superb"
—FOREWORD REVIEWS

"Mesmerizing"
—SUE MONK KIDD

“An impressive, sprawling novel about love and hate, life and death, sin and redemption, one worth any reader’s time.”
—SOUTHERN LITERARY REVIEW

“Sparkles with a powerful sense of place ... compelling ... hard to put down.”
—MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

“The best damned book I have ever read.”
—RANA SOUTHERN, BRANCH MANAGER, MT. AIRY PUBLIC LIBRARY

“Spectacular! Everybody read this book!”
—HELEN LITTLE, THE PUBLIC LIBRARY PODCAST, iHEARTRADIO

SIR WALTER RALEIGH AWARD
CROOKS CORNER PRIZE FINALIST
NATIONAL WOMEN'S BOOK ASSOCIATION GREAT GROUP READ

Marjorie Hudson was born in a small town in Illinois, grew up in Washington, D.C., and now writes and lives in Chatham County, North Carolina. She is author of story collection ACCIDENTAL BIRDS OF THE CAROLINAS, a PEN/Hemingway Honorable Mention, and the first book of Ambler County stories, and SEARCHING FOR VIRGINIA DARE, a North Carolina Arts Council Notable Book, both from Press 53.

Hudson's work explores the links between history, the human spirit, and the natural world, and reviewers have compared her work to that of Thomas Hardy and Isabel Allende.

ANDRE DUBUS III says, "This woman writes like a dream!"

Follow her online for updates on events and media and to make a book club visit request.

WEBSITE: www.marjoriehudson.com
FACEBOOK: marjorie.hudson1
INSTAGRAM: marjoriehudsonwriter
TWITTER: @marjoriehudson1

Reviews

[Martie Nees Record · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre: Literary Fiction/Mysticism
Publisher: Regal House
Pub. Date: March 14, 2023

Mini-Review

This multigenerational drama is ghost filled and written with Black and Native American spirituality in mind. In the rural South, three protagonists narrate the story—A retired colonel living in a posh home grieving from the abrupt passing of his younger wife. There is humor in his anger that he was supposed to go first. An elderly Black woman living on the opposite side of town is fiercely mourning her niece. Her niece was murdered by a white giving good tension in her part of the tale. In addition, a widowed goat farmer lives between the other two. She has an autistic son written tenderly and with an understanding of the disability. There is an abandoned field between the three that has been the scene of atrocities for three centuries. The novel has all the makings of a captivating read, which it mostly is. My only gripe is the jumping around between the living, the dead, and especially the lengthy paragraphs regarding mystical spiritualism. There were pages that I needed to reread for clarity. Still, I recommend reading “Indigo Field.” How could I not? The book is fascinating.

I received this novel at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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[Karen Pullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indigo Field is haunted by tragedy. It’s a wild, scrubby, rock-strewn field where the bones are buried—some from long-ago, some more recent. It’s surrounded by a housing development, the Widow Blake’s goat farm, and Reba Jones’s property.

From each of those places comes a character struggling with history, loss, and regret. Reba’s the star of this novel. She’s Black, elderly, and angry, grieving the murder of her beloved grand-niece Danielle, when she collides, literally, with Rand Lee, retired Army, also grieving – his wife has dropped dead on the tennis court, leaving him a sorry regret-filled mess. They are both struggling to find meaning in their lives after these losses. The novel revolves around the two of them and the widow Blake, a young, pretty mom fighting to keep her farm afloat. Each of the three has a son who’s trying to find his place in the world (in Reba’s case, TJ, her niece’s stepson). Rand’s son Jeff is an accident-prone archeologist; teenage Bobo Blake has Down syndrome. Their compelling stories intertwine and clash until a natural catastrophe upends their various worlds to bring healing and resolution.

It's hard to decide what’s strongest about this novel because there is so much to praise: Hudson’s remarkable research of Indian history, the luminous language, the fully-drawn characters, flaws, foibles, fears, and all. It’s a big book that deserves critical attention for its superb writing about big themes of racial injustice, the suffering of indigenous peoples, finding meaning after enormous loss. I wish I could give it ten stars!

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marjorie Hudson’s stunning debut novel, Indigo Field, conjures a world anchored in the people and soil of the “land between two rivers” in North Carolina. Under the ancient Gooley Pines, mycelial networks bind life together in a network of sharing. In the human community below, a similar network becomes tangible, with unexpected connections between past and present, old and young, dead and living, Black and Native American and white. Tragedies of the past work their way up through the rocky soil of Indigo Field, while grieving newcomers seek solace here as well. In lush, evocative prose, through a story that intertwines old dispossessions with new losses, Hudson limns this place with an ecologist’s eye and a poet’s heart.
I read this book through several revisions and saw it grow into its magnificent final form. Put it on your TBR list.

[Walter Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book in so many ways - beautiful writing; deep, resonant characters; expertly rendered, intricate plot; and a deeply human message that speaks directly to the heart. It is also a great read and one of those novels that make you feel like you've lived in the place and know the people, almost as if you, the reader, are part of the story yourself. And in truth you are; we all are. I highly recommend this book!

[Susan Zurenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Indigo Field" is both a heart-wrenching story and an affirming, heartwarming story of diverse characters, initially pitted against one another. Miss Reba, a wise and hardscrabble elderly woman of African American/Native American descent and Rand, a Caucasian retired Army colonel, are both grieving the loss of a loved one as the story begins. They literally connect when Rand, out for a morning run, dashes into Miss Reba's car. Miss Reba despises him for hitting her car that was already near the point of breakdown, and Rand is furious because he considers Miss Reba at fault. And then a shared crisis consumes these characters and grants them an opportunity for a different kind of connection. The main plot, along with captivating subplots, revolves around Indigo Field, a beautiful expanse with towering pine trees that covers secrets buried beneath. "Indigo Field" is a novel you need to read!

[Jane Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a masterpiece - a masterpiece of creating characters who live in my heart as real, of placing the reader in the time and location it is happening, of exquisite prose that had me shake my head and shed tears at its beauty. It is long and I am glad it was because I never wanted it to end!

I am haunted by the characters, their stories and how they all came together in a transformational ending. I haven't read anything this compelling in a long time.

I love that I had the precious opportunity to read it before it comes out on March 14.

I highly recommend Indigo Field!

[Frances Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marjorie Hudson has the ability to enter into - and convey - the lives of enormously diverse characters. She understands their dignity. She writes about them with love, with joy, with humor - and with compassion. Her great sensitivity and intelligence inform every page of Indigo Field. The story captivates. But it is the truth of all those great hearts that will hold Indigo Field to your own heart as a chronicle to remember.

[Pat Riviere-seel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In lyric prose that goes to the heart of what it means to be human, Marjorie Hudson has crafted a novel that explores the depth and complexity of our relationships with each other and with the places where we live. Indigo Field asks, what do we owe each other as human being? What do we owe this earth, our home? You will not find answers in the novel. But you will find redemption and grace. What more could we flawed humans ask for?

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway directly from the author.
What a great read! Living characters with secrets, ancestors, spirits, all with strands that weave together in a multitude of ways. All have stories that tug at your heart and cause them to act in ways that harm them and compromise their relationships. The ending? Riveting! Highly recommend.

[Hallie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really struggled to get into this read, and it's ~400 pages, so it's a lot to push through. I was stuck for days and days, never moving much past 20/25%. I kept saying I was going to prioritize reading it, and kept avoiding it, so I wasn't reading much of anything at all. Finally, after 15-ish minute sessions for days, I made it to about the 65% mark. From there, the book moves a bit faster, and I read from 80% through to the end in one sitting.

My biggest complaint with the book, therefore, is the pacing, because Hudson structures it around following certain characters for a few dozen pages, and I could not care less about Randall. The author makes him so unlikable, almost to the point of being irredeemable, which is an odd choice, because we are supposed to feel pity for him. I felt disgust. His son, Jeff, I was mostly ambivalent about. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and both of them ended up with more than they deserved, if I'm being honest.

However, I really enjoyed Reba and Jolene both as characters and their own plot lines. Reba is far and away the most interesting character due to her Sight and ability to commune with spirits. She is also the only character we get to really see change over time, because she shares memories of her childhood and early adulthood. I felt so deeply for Reba's plight, and wanted to do something to help her. Jolene I felt similarly about. She is obviously trying her absolute best and has been dealt a difficult hand — not a lot of money, a young widow and single mom to a child of special needs, and a lot of land to manage. I really enjoyed the chapters that centered on either of them, as I thought that had problems that seemed challenging and multifaceted, and they actually had to work and try to change their status, whereas Randall just stumbles around angrily and drunkenly and has everything go fine for him.

My second biggest complaint: Bobo's name. There is absolutely no reason to have a character with Down Syndrome be named Bobo when everyone else has normal names. Even just to change it to Bobby would be fine. It's almost like the author wanted to wave a multicolored flag that said "Don't forget, this is the character with a developmental disability and chromosomal abnormality! I named him a name that essentially sounds like 'Bozo' so you wouldn't forget he's not like the rest of us!"

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, excellent book!

INDIGO FIELD was another book that kept me reading into the night. All of the characters had different personalities and struggles, and they all affected each other in some way. I enjoyed the way that no one knew each other at the beginning, and then little by little, they realized that they were connected. I love how the Indigo Field brought them all together. And it was fascinating to hear about the graveyard find, The Colonel and Reba began as enemies and through weird circumstances, their relationship changed. There are many things to think about in this book: misunderstandings, sorrow, moving through grief, forgiveness, and friendship.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely book with strong characters. Each story carefully weaves race, ethnic relationships, class and survival into a lovely tapestry of ultimate redemption and forgiveness. If you like nice neat endings, you may be disappointed. But a story beautifully told.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a long time to finish this book. It started out great, kind of lost me in the middle, and then captivated me again in the last 100 pages. There was a lot going on in this book, with some very powerful themes. I do think it is worth reading and it would make for a very interesting book club discussion.

[Choltyogaembarqmail.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow ~ I really loved this book. The author has such a gift for being able to describe scenes so that I can feel what it felt like to be there and immersed in what is going on. Two thirds of the way into the book a situation happens that gripped me and held me in my chair for and wouldn't let me up even though I had things that I really needed to get up and get done! That hasn't happened to me with a book in a long time. Great character studies too. It took some courage to write this book.

[Al Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Indigo Field, Marjorie Hudson gives us a world much as we hope the world is, a world in which we are all “connected by skeins of love…..no matter what hateful people do.“ In the tradition of Willa Cather, the  land of Indigo Field and the Gooley Pines are important characters. It is a world where modern Christian religion walks comfortably with ancient mysticism. Where herbalism and white liquor blend.
A grown child with Down’s syndrome befriends a foster child.  Various cultures exist comfortably, side by side.  Death and life exist hand in hand.  The culture of Jim Crow confronts the ancient wisdom of native peoples.  Unsolved crimes wait for archaeologists without the plotting of a murder mystery.  Market farmers sell to customers who may be subject to foreclosure.  We savor the taste of RC Cola as well as bourbon(but not mixed!). We learn to grow French beans as we confront “Big Tree People.”  It is a world made of bones. If as Faulkner suggested, the past “is not even past,” in the world Hudson has imagined, the dead are not even dead.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

INDIGO FIELD is a terrific novel, a work of fiction that is also a work of art. The story is compelling; in fact, it's spell binding, and the writing is lively, vivid, and evocative. I won't give away the plot or too much about the wonderfully drawn characters, but suffice it to say the book will hold your attention from first page to last. There is tragedy in the story, but ultimately it is a story of celebrations. Hudson is particularly graceful and loving in her depictions of nature and how her characters fit into their surroundings. I can't think of any other American writers, except perhaps Wendell Berry and Annie Dillard, who write so well about the natural world. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a good story told in remarkable prose.

[Derralyn Monahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished ✔️ Indigo Field by Marjorie Hudson

4.75 ⭐️’s
Kindle Unlimited: No
Brims with multigenerational drama
Earthy spirituality
Deeply imagined characters
Beautiful written & told
Brilliantly written & well told story
Enjoyed the characters
Yes, I’d recommend this book 📖

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[Clifford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heckuva novel--sprawling, engrossing, exciting, moving. It's a story of life, death, and redemption, in which past conflicts--sometimes distant past--resurface with uncertain outcomes. I think only someone like this author who has come to know the territory and the people about which she writes could have pulled this off. In the process of telling us a story about a gruff old retired Army colonel who is unhappy about his current situation, the author also lets the reader discover an incredibly complex history of the region and its inhabitants, the descendants of native and enslaved people. And then the winds of change come and stir everything up.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best novel I’ve read in a while. Marjorie’s prose is beautiful and flows so naturally. Her characters are wonderfully quirky and also tragic. You feel for them and they are stay with you when you finish the book. She does a great job throughout the book pointing out the true beauty of North Carolina and the true ugliness of class and racial prejudice. I don’t usually write reviews. I just recommend books to friends and family that I’ve enjoyed. This book is an exception. I think everyone should read this book.

[Judith Turner-Yamamoto · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Faulkner famously said, “'The past is never dead. It's not even past.' Nowhere do those words ring truer than in this fabulously layered and beautifully written choral novel. Hudson delves into the inherent bond Southerners feel to land to conjure a world of pitch perfect voices, past and present, that lay bare the soul of a place. Not to miss, this is Southern storytelling at its finest.

[Cindy Brookshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent. Wish I'd read it when it first came out in March 2023. I started it during the busy holiday, and couldn't put it down; then I slowed down because I didn't want it to end, I was friends with all the characters. I even read the acknowledgments just to linger even further with it, and it confirmed the time and the wealth of research, input, and master crafting the author put into it. Well done, Marjorie Hudson.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

With great attention to detail and artful prose, Hudson explores the history and current inhabitants of a small town in North Carolina. This remarkable account is worth every hour you spend understanding the complex characters and how race, culture, gender, and socioeconomic class influence current behaviors. I wish I could give Indigo Field 10 stars.

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptionally well written book dense with layers of meaning.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complex and well-written take on the interconnectedness of our lives.

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engaging tale set in a small rural North Carolina town battling gentrification. Drama, trauma, and secrets are interwoven within the lives of an indigenous widowed mother struggling to mind her farm and raise a special needs child; a White retired military Colonel grieving the sudden and unexpected loss of his beautiful, dedicated wife; and an elderly, childless Black woman who seeks vengeance in the aftermath of the violent murder of her beloved grandniece whom she reared as a daughter. Race, age, gender are mentioned because the intersection of those aspects shape the characters’ life experiences and perspectives which provide character motivations and life-changing decisions with varying results.

This is a character-driven novel with each struggling with angst and sorrow - inwardly and outwardly with mixed results - some turn to God/religion, some turn away; others use alcohol as a balm, etc. In a climatic set of events, humanity emerges as the unifying bond that supersedes cultural and ideological differences. There are themes of resourcefulness and resilience evidenced via the environment’s example that demonstrates new beginnings are possible even in the worst of circumstances. Other themes offer meditations on forgiveness, atonement, and sacrifice; some contain aspects regarding rooted spirituality and catharsis via storytelling/verbalization.

This is a well-researched novel as evidenced in the events, social attitudes of past eras, flashbacks that reference obscure regional (North Carolina) history, and various aspects of indigenous folklore and traditions.

Thanks to Regal House Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to review in exchange for an honest review.

[Patsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did to finish. Made such a minimal impression that I can't even remember why I quite reading

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read about this book by a local author in the (sadly now defunct) Chatham News and Record newspaper. Kind of slow going for a while, and I read another review that said pacing is an issue. I agree with that. But the last part of the book is a real page-turner. And I'm a sucker for a happy ending.

[Laura Vanderbeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an absolute treasure! The prose soars and carries the reader with it, along the ridgeline, above the pines, where you can look down and see the mysteries of the human heart laid bare. I read it twice because I loved it so much, and I may read it again. Marjorie Hudson has a way of presenting both the strengths and weaknesses of her characters in a very nonjudgmental way that allows the reader to relate to them honestly. and compassionately.

Indigo Field delights with hints of the intuitive and the spiritual, which, like the things that are glimpsed only momentarily out of the corner of the eye, leaves the reader a little bit breathless. There is a depth to this book that will be appreciated by the student of history as well as the student of human nature, and I can recommend it without reservation.

[Dale Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marjorie Hudson makes a dynamite debut with "Indigo Field," writing up a storm in perceptive prose. She carefully crosscuts the stories of the retired widower Rand wrestling with his grief in a new subdivision in an old part of the South. His path will cross with Miss Reba, a Black woman mourning the murder of her beloved niece. And Hudson adds other well-drawn characters with family members and neighbors, as well as the indigenous history of the field at the heart of this novel. A perfect read for Book Clubs eager to take on the complexities and heartaches of our contemporary South.

[Amanda O · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was beautifully written. Very artful storytelling, I do recommend this.