Bent Road [Kindle Edition]

Lori Roy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Set in the mid '60s, Roy's outstanding debut melds strong characters and an engrossing plot with an evocative sense of place. When Negro boys start phoning Elaine, Arthur Scott's teenage daughter, Arthur decides it's time to leave Detroit and return to the small Kansas town that he left 20 years earlier after his sister Eve's mysterious death. His wife, Celia, resents the move that will put her close to in-laws she barely knows and that will change her family dynamic. That Arthur's younger daughter, Eve-ee, resembles her late aunt unsettles Arthur's older sister, Ruth, and Ruth's husband, Ray, who have never seen Eve-ee before. When a neighbor's child disappears, suspicion uncomfortably settles on Ray, who was suspected in Eve's death. Roy couples a vivid view of the isolation and harshness of farm life with a perceptive look at the emotions that can rage beneath the surface. This Midwestern noir with gothic undertones is sure to make several 2011 must-read lists. (Apr.)
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Review

''Bent Road is a remarkably assured debut novel. Rich and evocative, Lori Roy's voice is a welcome addition to American fiction.'' --Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island

''In her promising debut novel Bent Road, Lori Roy proves that dark secrets hide even in the most wide-open places. Set in the beautifully rendered Kansas plains, Bent Road is a family story with a suspenseful gothic core, one which shows that the past always has a price, whether you're running from it or back toward it. Crisp, evocative prose, full-blooded characters, and a haunting setting make this debut stand out.'' --Michael Koryta, author of Tonight I Said Goodbye

''Dropping us in a world of seeming simplicity, in a time of seeming calm, Lori Roy transforms 1960s small-town Kansas into a haunting memoryscape. Bringing to mind the family horrors of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and the dark emotional terrain of Tana French's In the Woods, Bent Road manages to be both psychologically acute and breathtakingly suspenseful, burrowing into your brain with a feverish power all its own.'' --Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning novelist

''Roy's outstanding debut melds strong characters and an engrossing plot with an evocative sense of place . . . . Roy couples a vivid view of the isolation and harshness of farm life with a perceptive look at the emotions that can rage beneath the surface. This Midwestern noir with gothic undertones is sure to make several 2011 must-read lists.'' --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

''A tale of extraordinary emotional power, one of longstanding pain set against the pulsating drumbeat of social change, a rhythm the Scott family wishes could be ignored but which affects them regardless.'' --NPR.org

''This tautly written, chilling piece of heartland noir is . . . an impressive debut. Roy takes a bucolic setting--rural Kansas--and makes it an effective stage for a suspenseful tale of tragedy and dread . . . Bent Road is rich in sensory details . . . that anchor the story in its place and time. Roy populates that world with a believable cast of characters, deftly marrying a story of domestic violence and familial love with a gothic mystery that is compelling at each turn of the page.'' --St. Petersburg Times

''Roy's exceptional debut novel is full of tension, complex characters, and deftly gothic overtones. Readers of Tana French's In the Woods will find this dark and satisfying story a great read. Highly recommended.'' --Library Journal (starred review)

''Roy's suspenseful debut novel presents readers with a rich mix of troubled characters planted against the backdrop of a small Kansas farming town and the mysterious deaths of two young girls . . . This odd, dark, and often creepy tale of a dysfunctional community and a family that fits right in will keep readers wondering right until the last page.'' --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 393 KB
• Publisher: DUTTON ADULT (March 31, 2011)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004BDP08Y
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,349 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Lori Roy was born and raised in the Midwest where she attended and graduated from Kansas State University. Her work has appeared in the Chattahoochee Review. She currently lives with her family in west central Florida. Bent Road is her first novel.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, feels like it could be true, April 6, 2011

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bent Road (Hardcover)

BENT ROAD is a difficult book to wedge into any particular genre other than "fiction." And that's a good thing. There is a mystery at the heart of it, a bit of romance, and some coming-of-age and coming-to-terms elements, but debut author Lori Roy has created a work that is more of a dark parable than a tale designed for entertainment or amusement. As such, it haunts throughout and long after the final page is read. It is reminiscent, in one sense, of Thomas Wolfe's YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN, though it perhaps contains a rejoinder to that title along the lines of "Oh. Really? Try to leave."

Indeed, it begins with the Scott family --- husband Arthur, wife Celia, daughters Elaine and Evie, and son Daniel --- returning in 1967 to Arthur's home in rural Kansas, the home he fled some 20 years before. The riots in their hometown of Detroit have prompted the move, but the Scotts discover they are trading one set of problems for another.

Little has changed since Arthur left his home on Bent Road following the mysterious and unsolved death of his sister, Eve. Her passing occurred shortly before she was married to Ray, and the locals have cast a suspicious eye on him, even after he married Ruth, Eve and Arthur's sister, in Eve's place. Ray nonetheless has been sinking into an alcoholic moroseness in the intervening period, interrupted only by explosive incidents where his temper has manifested itself with increasingly violent beatings visited upon Ruth. Almost immediately after the Scotts return, however, an incident involving another young girl --- this one gone missing --- awakens the memory of the prior tragedy, and suspicion is cast upon Ray once again. While that is the primary plot that runs through BENT ROAD, there is a great deal of tension percolating under the surfaces of the lives of the family members.

Evie is unable to make friends. Daniel, on the cusp of adulthood, feels himself overshadowed by his father and by Jonathon, Elaine's boyfriend. It is Celia, though, who feels most out of place, who feels a loss of self somewhere between the cosmopolitan setting of Detroit and the uneasy claustrophobia of the country people and their worldview. And, of course, there is her mother-in-law to deal with, who is constantly judging and finding her wanting in the most subtle of ways. Things come to a head when Ray beats Ruth so badly that Arthur intervenes, taking her into the family's home and offering her protection. Arthur's involvement and Ruth's exile is ill-regarded by the townspeople and the local priest, who believe that a woman's place is with her husband even under the worst of circumstances.

Ruth's --- and particularly Arthur's --- defiance brings matters to a head, and more significantly lead to the revelation of secrets that have laid quietly (if not restfully) on the conscience of instigators and victims alike for almost two decades. This uncovering results in a cataclysmic conclusion that demonstrates no one is entirely blameless or guilty for what has occurred in either the past or the present.

Roy travels some of the same terrain that Tana French has explored, but does so from a much different perspective and with her own unique set of characters. The prose reads with the authority of a diary, and one cannot walk away from BENT ROAD without feeling almost certain that the events detailed here occurred somewhere out in the Midwest, at an all-but-invisible crossroads far from the nearest interstate, where people keep to themselves and settle their own problems. Nevertheless, you will want to visit.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gritty and Real, April 16, 2011

By 

Lisa "Casual Reader" (Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bent Road (Hardcover)

What a fantastic book! It brings to mind the feelings evoked when seeing "American Gothic" in person. Sure, it looks like a simple painting, but underneath simmers an entire world of secrets and lies. It starts with a fairly simple premise: a family moves from Detroit to rural Kansas, the home of the patriarch Arthur Scott. While there he must face the past he ran away from and the present that may prove even more toxic.

The writing paints a vivid picture. I could see everything happen so clearly, playing like a movie in my head. Stick Kate Winslet in there, and you have an Oscar winner. It's gritty. It's real. Yet despite all the tragedy and heartache, there still lies a real sense of hope in the end. There's just the whisper of a chance that maybe this family will get past this, break the cycle, and make a better life for themselves and their community.

I highly recommend this book. Lori Roy was able to find the beauty in the stark reality of this family. I was left wanting to know more about their future and past. I will definitely look for more from this author.

Copy of this book won in a First Reads contest.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Road Leads Home, March 31, 2011

By 

nightprose "McGuffy Ann" (The Great Lakes, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bent Road (Hardcover)

Bent Road

by Lori Roy

This is a gripping debut novel from an author to watch. Lori Roy tells a story in southern-gothic tradition of a family haunted by the past.

To escape the race riots of 1967 Detroit, Arthur Scott returns to Kansas, after fleeing his family homestead there twenty years before.

While his teen daughter settles into a new love and life in Kansas, his adolescent son, and grade school daughter struggle to fit in and belong.

Arthur's wife must come to terms with being a farm wife, as she struggles with Arthur's secret past and what drove him away from his home here so long ago.

Ms. Roy portrays a very real picture of farm life, country folk, and the secrets a family will go to all lengths to hide, even from each other.

The characters are believable, their struggles heartfelt. This is a haunting, memorable story. This author has much to offer, in a genuine way. I welcome her, and highly recommend her.