A Crooked Tree
A Crooked Tree is an absolutely stunning, suspenseful and engaging debut book by Una Mannion, and it is hard to believe this is her first publication! I can only hope that my review can truly honor such a masterfully written story.
“The night we left Ellen on the road, we drove up the mountain in silence.”
It is the early 1980s and fifteen-year-old Libby is obsessed with The Field Guide to the Trees of North America, a gift her Irish immigrant father gave her before he died. She finds solace in “The Kingdom,” a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel near her home in suburban Pennsylvania, where she can escape from her large and unruly family and share menthol cigarettes and lukewarm beers with her best friend.
One night, while driving home, Libby’s mother, exhausted and overwhelmed with the fighting in the backseat, pulls over and orders Libby’s little sister Ellen to walk home. What none of this family knows as they drive off leaving a twelve-year-old girl on the side of the road five miles from home with darkness closing in, is what will happen next.
A Crooked Tree is a character driven driven story that takes you into a family of tightknit siblings and friends. The story is told through the eyes of 15 year old Libby over the summer going into her Junior year in High School. Mannion did an phenomenal job of writing from the view point of a teenager dealing with a neglectful parent while she navigates not only the angst of being a teenager, but a teenager dealing with the fateful consequences of her own mother’s haunting action of leaving her little sister Ellen on the side of the road to walk home one night and all that spiraled out of control from there. Watching Libby and her siblings deal with the reality of the life they live was compelling and heartbreaking, as they were forced to find their own way through a difficult summer with no parental help or guidance.
Moreover, Mannion’s writing is taught, intense, and expressive. The characters are genuine, sympathetic, vulnerable, courageous and lovable. I found myself wanting to mother the whole family and protect them from the beginning.
The plot is a beautifully written, poignant tale about coming of age, family dynamics, loyalty, life, and strength. I was fully invested, and engaged from the very beginning as it immediately transported back to the mountains in suburban 1980s Pennsylvania through the fashion and music of the time period.
Overall, A Crooked Tree is an epic, emotional, haunting, masterfully woven debut book by Mannion that immerses you so thoroughly into the lives, feelings, and personalities of the characters and you never want it to end. It is without a doubt going to be one of my new favorite character driven novels of the year and it really shouldn’t be missed. I cannot wait to see what Mannion will write in the future!
