Book Review Of “Harrow”

The title of Pulitzer Prize finalist Joy Williams’ thin, wry novel Harrow, her first in quite a while, reverberates through a few undertones: to loot, to loot, to develop with a harrow, to torture, to vex. For sure, this is a brilliantly vexing novel, one whose images open up to this present reality.

Khristen is a teen whose life has been molded by a story informed by her mom concerning when newborn child Khristen kicked the bucket and returned to life, and by her ensuing assumed extraordinariness. The world that encompasses Khristen is in ruins, defaced by ecological breakdown. Her mom vanishes, and her live-in school for gifted youngsters screens. Little sounds good to her as she attempts to sort out what endurance implies.

As we follow Khristen on her excursion, we see the demolished scene, hear frightening discussions and notice a world that appears to be past reclamation. However as Khristen shows up at a hotel situated almost an odoriferous, confusing lake known as Big Girl, we see her longing—and that of her companion Jeffrey—to save this spot, regardless of how testing and frightful it could be. People have obliterated the land, but then in this novel, they can’t exactly release it.

Khristen demonstrates a convincing, inexpressible person who gets away from order. She merits pulling for and meriting our interest as we attempt to get her. Exact and separated, delightfully delivered and meager, Williams’ exposition is intriguing, her voice enrapturing. The sentences are without a moment’s delay clear and secretive. The depictions of this world, one that isn’t exactly our own however close, are striking. The discourse is tormenting and locking in.

Harrow creeps into your reality. I completed the novel in two sittings and went through days attempting to sort out all that it offers, seeing water and land through an alternate focal point, envisioning the potential outcomes when we trust in the significance that others find in us, and what happens when we decide not to.