The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush

“Each fully developed character has a role to play in this moving and unusual novel, a homespun Pilgrim's Progress set at a dairy farm on Big Sugar River in East Tennessee in 1961. When twelve-year-old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events is set in motion, inevitable as the dire judgment of the local Primitive Baptist Church. Leonard's rigid, God-fearing mother, June; his secret-bearing father, Emmett; Leonard's best friend, Azalea, and her troubled mother, Rose, the local whore, are only the protagonists in a story played out by the entire community. Gilmore knows how to move the suspenseful events right along to its brilliant and moving conclusion. A big, generous novel, a really good read.” —Lee Smith, The Last Girls and Silver Alert

"By turns sweet, deepest-dark, hilarious, poignant, grotesque, thrilling, and oh-so-human. It’s above all moving: the Southern spirit climbing mountains then tumbling down, then climbing once more, all with one leg." —Bill Roorbach, best-selling author of Life Among Giants, Lucky Turtle, and The Remedy for Love

“The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush is a call to readers to stop what they’re doing and read! Humorous, heartfelt, and sometimes harrowing, Susan Gregg Gilmore introduces us to a compelling cast of characters and a community built on a system of give-and-take. At the center of it all is young Leonard, his early loss a transforming lesson to everyone around him.” —Jill McCorkle, Old Crimes and Life After Life

Young Leonard Bush buries his lost leg and saves his whole East Tennessee town in this winsome and miracle-making novel.

When twelve-year-old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, he decides to give his leg a proper burial in the hilltop cemetery of his East Tennessee town. This event somehow sets off a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events—upending the lives of Leonard’s rigidly God-fearing mother, June; his deeply conflicted father, Emmett; and his best friend, Azalea, and her mother, Rose, who is also the town prostitute. While the local Baptist minister passes judgment on events and promises dire consequences, the people of this small community on the banks of Big Sugar move together toward awakening.

Susan Gilmore’s love of storytelling flows naturally from her Tennessee roots. She’s the daughter of a revival preacher’s son, brought up on the land and streams that populate this novel that is, as Appalachian novelist Lee Smith says, a “homespun Pilgrim’s Progress.”

Hardcover ISBN 9781958888551