With explosive energy, Luck chronicles the seething tensions that culminate in disaster during one sweltering summer in a small tobacco farming community in North Carolina. Mike Olive returns to his hometown with a group of fellow Duke students to investigate the overall decline of tobacco farming as well as the use, and abuse, of Mexican migrant workers. Determined to rid his town of corruption and bigotry, Mike makes the migrant workers his crusade, much to the consternation of his father and his neighbors. Conflicts mount as he accuses farmers of rumored crimes and falls in love with Hermalinda, the beautiful and remarkably self-possessed daughter of one of his father's workers. Mike's "townie" rival, the wickedly charming but fatefully doomed Harvey Dickerson, deftly challenges Mike's nave and nearly evangelical convictions. Long-standing family rivalries and loyalties erupt into brutal violence that forever changes the town. From Hermalinda's rich and turbulent life on the Texas-Mexico border and her conflicting feelings about her affair with the boss's son to Harvey's silver-tongued philosophizing and Mike's well-intentioned but woefully destructive actions, the complex community of this troubled southern town is vividly realized. Luck is a compelling, incisive, and stunningly written novel. Eric Martin is a unique and brilliant new voice in fiction.
Luck
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Migrant labor reform roils a close-knit community of Southern tobacco farmers in this tense and provocative examination of social issues. The Mexican migrant workers who toil on the tobacco plantations in Jackson County, N.C., are subjected to many abuses by landowners who stubbornly refuse to recognize that slavery has ended. Handsome 21-year-old Mike Olive, son of Cottesville's wealthiest tobacco farmer, Clayton Olive, spends a hellishly hot summer in his hometown with a team of fellow Duke University students assigned to document the economics, sociology and history of Mexican migrant labor. The team ultimately becomes active in a battle for human rights for the workers. As Mike begins to question his own family's complicity in the abuses, he falls in love with Hermelinda Salmeron, the strikingly beautiful 17-year-old daughter of a laborer at the Olive camp. One-time childhood friend Harvey Dickerson still resents Mike's family's inheritance of the rich farmland where the Olives and Dickersons used to work side by side. As the temperature rises above 100 degrees, rumors of Mike's relationship with a Mexican girl and the growing abuses at the Dickerson plantation create tension in the community. First-novelist Martin deftly chronicles the plight of the Mexican migrants and illuminates the barriers that thwart understanding between Southern landowners and workers. The luck that gives the book its title is certainly not all good, and Mike, Harvey and Hermelinda are caught up in the twists and turns of fortune. Retaliation against Mike's reforms comes in the guise of a suspicious fire and a vigilante's mail bomb, underscoring in its violence Martin's Faulknerian sense of twisted justice. Agent, Jennifer R. Walsh at the Writers Shop. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
A marvelously wrought story out of the American heartland, one told with originality, a marvelous style and a generous spirit. -- Boston Herald, 6 August 2000
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A stunning debut novel,
By
This review is from: Luck: A Novel (Hardcover)
Eric Martin is a writer of enormous talent. The book is an extremely realistic portrayal of the exploitation of migrant workers in the south. The book tackles its difficult subject matter with fairness and honesty. Recognizing that the book could have been a dull morality play Eric makes it so much more through his depth of character and brilliant description. It took me two days to read this book, I simply could not put it down.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent and Thrilling,
This review is from: Luck: A Novel (Hardcover)
Any book that takes on a serious social issue (migrant labor, in this case) risks moralizing but Martin's mind is too sharp to fall into that trap. While recognizing the human tendency to draw lines between dark and light (many of his characters try and fail to do just that), the author never lets his readers off so easily. Which is not to say he wearies us with wishy-washy waffling (forgive my tribute to "w"). There is right and wrong throughout the novel, it's just that every character gets ample portions of both. The brilliance of the novel is in the main character, Mike Olive, and his foil, Harvey Dickerson. They are essentially enemies, but only by circumstance; personality-wise, we see that they should have been friends. But I'm making the book sound dull. Stop reading this review and buy "Luck". It's a terrific story and when I say story I mean good old fashioned plot that will have you tearing through the pages without once insulting your intelligence.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW. A storyteller in our midst,
By A Customer
This review is from: Luck: A Novel (Hardcover)
The characters, whether good guys/girls or bad (and sometimes it is hard to tell who is which) are beautifully presented. The reader cares about them, while knowing an inevitable conflict looms to explode their lives and their community. Lyrical, terse writing meshes with a dramatic, tense plot to keep the reader engrossed. What a find!
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