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rebeccacider's review
In West Mills follows an African American community in rural North Carolina across the decades. In fiction, we often imagine stories as journeys, but this novel is about people who've found their home in one place, and in each other. It's a funny, accessible, profound novel, and its author writes about flawed characters and hard times with great tenderness.
Living as a transplant in the South, the past often feels like a foreign country, paved over by economic displacement and the unresolved trauma of Jim Crow. I see glimpses of West Mills in falling-down country stores, in secondhand stories of life before indoor plumbing, in African American high school yearbooks, in the local radio station that—in the year of our lord 2019—broadcast black and white death notices at different times of day.
Against the erosion of memory, this novel is time travel, an act of reclamation. Highly recommended.
Living as a transplant in the South, the past often feels like a foreign country, paved over by economic displacement and the unresolved trauma of Jim Crow. I see glimpses of West Mills in falling-down country stores, in secondhand stories of life before indoor plumbing, in African American high school yearbooks, in the local radio station that—in the year of our lord 2019—broadcast black and white death notices at different times of day.
Against the erosion of memory, this novel is time travel, an act of reclamation. Highly recommended.
booksnbrownsugar's review
5.0
Memorable characters
Listen.....this book was entertaining as hell! I LOVE LOVE LOVE a book that literally “puts me there”. To where I can perfectly imagine the characters, their clothes, facial features, traits, the settings, everything. It makes a book unable to be put down. I legit felt like I knew every single character. We follow Azalea “Knot” Centre who is a complete PIECE OF WORK! Tell-it-like-it-is, f**k your feelings, straight no chaser type of female who loved men, moonshine, and reading (go figure
Listen.....this book was entertaining as hell! I LOVE LOVE LOVE a book that literally “puts me there”. To where I can perfectly imagine the characters, their clothes, facial features, traits, the settings, everything. It makes a book unable to be put down. I legit felt like I knew every single character. We follow Azalea “Knot” Centre who is a complete PIECE OF WORK! Tell-it-like-it-is, f**k your feelings, straight no chaser type of female who loved men, moonshine, and reading (go figure
latetotheparty's review
4.0
Hooray for an NC author! I really enjoyed this story and the characters and how it deftly spanned about 40 years. I could picture it all. It was an easy read with lots of nuances.
ari76's review
3.0
An interesting debut novel about a small, rural town in North Carolina. I really enjoyed the characters Winslow created, but agree with other reviewers that the time skipping left me wanting more. More depth and richness in the plot, as well as more time to get to know characters like Coy and Cedar.
lola425's review
4.0
If you liked Olive Kitteridge, you will like In West Mills. Knot is as unforgettable a character as Olive and as you follow her through her lonely and yet still full life, you know you will not easily forget her.
eileen_critchley's review
4.0
I really enjoyed this book. Something about the characters really drew me in. I love books that take place over a couple of generations and decades (in this case in North Carolina from the 1940s to 1980s). I really felt like I was THERE.
The timeline jumps around a bit, not in terms of one minute it's 1947, and the next 1962, and then back to '47 again, but more it would one minute be 1947 and then suddenly be 1962.. that's fine but I am one of those people who is constantly adding up ages of characters in her head.. so Knot would be in her 40s now? Anyone else? No, just me? OK.
Anyway, a quick read, characters I enjoyed, friendships, secrets, family, North Carolina.
Spoiler
I did wonder how realistic it was *really* that Valley, as a gay man, would have been accepted as well as he was into the community /Spoiler
The timeline jumps around a bit, not in terms of one minute it's 1947, and the next 1962, and then back to '47 again, but more it would one minute be 1947 and then suddenly be 1962.. that's fine but I am one of those people who is constantly adding up ages of characters in her head.. so Knot would be in her 40s now? Anyone else? No, just me? OK.
Anyway, a quick read, characters I enjoyed, friendships, secrets, family, North Carolina.
ljjohnson8's review
4.0
A debut novel by a talented author. In West Mills tells the story of a group of neighbors in a black rural community in North Carolina, spanning the 1940s to the 1980s. At the center of the group and the plot is Azalea "Knot" Centre, a hard-drinking and hard-loving woman - prickly, independent Knot who wants to be left alone to live her life her way. She pays some high prices for her sometimes abysmal choices; she can be shockingly lacking in insight; and she certainly is difficult to like at times. But Winslow creates a vibrant and unforgettable character, along with a number of wonderful other characters and relationships, most especially the lifelong friendship between Knot and the extraordinary and loving Otis Lee. I didn't want to leave West Mills.