Holding On To Nothing
Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne
Lucy Kilgore has her bags packed for her escape from her rural Tennessee upbringing, but a drunken mistake forever tethers her to the town and one of its least-admired residents, Jeptha Taylor, who becomes the father of her child. Together, these two young people work to form a family, though neither has any idea how to accomplish that, and the odds are against them in a place with little to offer other than bluegrass music, tobacco fields, and a Walmart full of beer and firearms for the hunting season. Their path is harrowing, but Lucy and Jeptha are characters to love, and readers will root for their success in a novel so riveting that no one will want to turn out the light until they know whether this family will survive.
In luminous prose, debut novelist Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne brings us a present-day Appalachian story in the tradition of Lee Smith, Silas House, and Ron Rash, cast without sentiment or cliche, but with a genuine and profound understanding of the place and its people.
“Shelburne’s stunning debut novel is a long trip into small-town Tennessee…riveting, touching, heart-wrenching, tragic, and beautiful.”—Booklist
Featured on The Millions’ “Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2019 Book Preview.”
Featured on The Week’s “25 books to read in the second half of 2019”
“Holding On To Nothing is a resonant song of the South, all whiskey, bluegrass, Dolly Parton, tobacco fields, and women who know better but still fall for the lowdown men whom they know will disappoint them. Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne writes with extraordinary love and compassion of the lives of her flawed characters; she shines a clear, calm light on their tragedies, their joys, and their hard-won redemptions.”—Lauren Groff, Florida and Fates and Furies
“Forget Hillbilly Elegy and read this gorgeous novel instead. Every detail is exactly right. Contemporary themes of work and no work, drinking, sex, guns, music, community, and no future—along with in-depth character development and a hard-driving plot—make this a book you literally cannot put down.” —Lee Smith, Dimestore and The Last Girls
“With her immense empathy for her characters, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne refuses to give the reader a simple, and stereotypical, tale of Appalachian dysfunction. Instead, we get a story of a seemingly star-crossed couple striving to create a better life in the most trying of circumstances. Holding On To Nothing is a gem.”—Ron Rash, Serena
“With unflinching candor imbued with love and understanding, Elizabeth Shelburne's evocative debut novel explores the meaning of family and the choices people make when the world denies them good options. A compassionate but unsentimental tale of love, loss, and hardship in modern-day Appalachia.”—Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light
“Following in the literary footsteps of Silas House's debut novel Clay's Quilt, Holding On To Nothing is a tragically beautiful tale of love, loss, music, and blue-collar mountain life. Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne is a fresh contemporary Appalachian voice that I hope to hear from again and again.”―Amy Greene, Bloodroot and Long Man
Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne grew up in the Appalachian foothills of East Tennessee. A graduate of Amherst College, her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Broad River Review, and Barren Magazine, among others. Her debut novel Holding On To Nothing won an IPPY gold for Best Regional Fiction from the South and was long-listed for the Clara Johnson Award. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband and four children.
