Customer Reviews

Sweetwater Burning: A Novel

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The characters stay with you a long time after you finish the book....a sure sign of great character development. Very real and vivid mind pictures. Bravo!

Funny things happen when you face the truth: people begin to feel better about themselves. That's how it is in Blackbelly, a book full of small-town angst. Set in Sweetwater, Idaho, population "a long way from a shopping mall," the book's voice and cadence fits the landscape: plainspoken, unassuming and natural. Author Sharfeddin has crafted a compelling story around Chas McPherson, a 41-year-old who wants to be left alone to tend his flock of blackbelly sheep and do the right thing -- which includes helping his dad live out his last days at home. Intimidating as he is fragile, the senior McPherson is dying from late-stage Parkinson's. You can feel sorry for him, but it's not easy to like him. His freakish past as the town's fiery pastor includes calling people out for their sins. Now that he's mute and expressionless, we don't know what he's thinking, but he's apparently more alert than the people able to walk and talk around him. His silence looms large, adding dimension and tension between he and his son, and he and Mattie Holden -- the youngish nurse willing to put up with just about anything. Sharfeddin romanticizes nothing. The old ranch and house are a dump, the sheep are dirty, and the drinking gets hard. Above it all is an earnest sheriff who's trying to figure out who burned down the house of an Iranian-American family that -- good lord -- doesn't celebrate Christmas. Nicely drawn is how the characters' personal certainties unravel. Particularly touching are nurse Mattie's one-way, slightly awkward conversations with the old man, where she keeps him going by talking about everything from 16th-century fashion to random Bible passages, which she knows little about. She works hard. And she puts up with Chas, a small man on the exterior, but a big one inside. Why would a nurse take a job in the middle of nowhere? Why is Chas the town's number-one suspect for the arson? It's why I recommend it. Throw in never-die prejudices and the complexities of political correctness, man-made sins, forgiveness, and Sharfeddin delivers an even-handed novel that touch the truths of remembering too much.

Bigotry, fear, and long, vengeful memories fuel the tension in Sharfeddin's striking debut, but it's her two main characters who capture the imagination and keep the pages turning.

Set on a sheep ranch in remote Idaho, the story opens with 41-year-old Chas McPherson answering a phone call. He's advertised for a live-in nurse so he can bring his father home to die, but so far he's had no luck. As he talks it's easy to see why. He's a man too used to his own unwanted company. He's abrupt and blunt, with no social skills.

As he talked, "He looked around his house at the piles of clutter and filthy dishes....When he hung up, he looked at the mess again, seeing it in a different light, now that someone was actually coming." He worked for three days clearing "decades" of accumulation, but it wasn't until the prospective nurse arrived that he realized he hadn't cleaned.

"The house wasn't cluttered now; it was sparse. He'd purged it of trash and memories alike, as if there was no distinction. But he hadn't scrubbed anything. And now, as she approached, he saw the dust, the grit, the coating of neglect on everything."

But Mattie Holden, a city girl from Spokane in her mid-30s, takes the job, and moves in immediately. Too relieved to question his luck, Chas quickly moves his father home and Mattie settles in to a lot more of the cleaning and cooking than she'd planned on. Chas' father is helpless and unresponsive, in the last stages of Parkinson's.

But there's an aura of strength about him, a presence that grows increasingly ominous. "He just seems bigger than he is," Mattie tells Chas. "When I turn my head I have this sense that he's enormous. It sounds crazy."

Chas, grudgingly attempting to co-exist, tells her how his father once killed a bobcat with his own hands. "Illness can't diminish a man like that." Slowly, haltingly, Chas reveals more. His mother ran away when he was 10; his big, powerful sheep-ranching father was a preacher with rigid, unforgiving standards. Chas himself is gruff and hard drinking, but thinks of himself as a man who didn't live up to anyone's standards, even his own.

Chas is a complex character, a man who looks just like his father but has none of the old man's rigidity. It doesn't take him long to realize Mattie has secrets, but he doesn't pry. When a valued customer, the only Muslim family in town, can't afford to buy the traditional lamb before Eid, Chas leaves one tethered to their porch and then denies having done so. He refuses to sign a petition banning Christmas trappings from the local school because, he says, it will only give bigots an excuse to lash out at the non-Christians.

A few days later the Muslim family's house is torched and Chas is accused of the crime. The sheriff, an outsider, assumes there must be something to it if everyone in town is convinced Chas is guilty.

Meanwhile Mattie is having more and more trouble sleeping, convinced Chas' father is haunting her, that he sees into the deepest recesses of her soul and her less than proud past. And maybe there's something to that. Most of Sweetwater thinks he has uncanny powers and hates him for it too, willing to visit all the old man's unforgiving destruction on the son.

The town's near-universal willingness to come together in hatred would seem far-fetched if it didn't happen so often in real life. Sharfeddin does a good job of portraying small town insularity and mutual reinforcement and builds the novel to a complex, layered conclusion.

Described in the jacket copy as a "contemporary Western," "Blackbelly" has all the elements: the whisky-drinking, principled, misunderstood loner; the troubled, secretive woman who draws him out, and the evil of lesser men, which threatens to destroy his life. But Sharfeddin's treatment of these elements makes them real, with shades of ambiguity throughout, conflicts not easily settled and no simple resolution. A bit battered by life, Mattie and Chas have learned from their mistakes and flaws (Chas more than Mattie), but not overcome them.

Sharfeddin, a sheep rancher herself, fleshes out the feel and smell of a sheep ranch. The book's title comes from a special breed of sheep, which the reader learns a fair amount about in the course of the novel, and the rhythm of the work (it's lambing time) creates a structured flow. An impressive first novel from a writer to watch.

I just finished the book. I really enjoyed it and am feeling a little sad that I don't have these characters to keep reading about. I'm tempted to start the book over again to avoid losing their company. The book moves at a good pace and is anything but predictable. We are given a hint of what the police officer in the story is like, leaving me wanting to know more about him, although he was not a main character. Chas, the main character, is truly a good and moral soul, despite his flaws. The details are very authentic of rural ranch life in Idaho and painted a full picture that you could simply step into and forget you were reading. Little things like the sheep's reaction to things seen and unseen gave the book rich context. I would highly recommend this book and am eagerly waiting to see what else comes out from this author.

Have you ever hit a dry spell with the books you read? When everything you pick up is missing that special something that hooks you in and holds you until the last word?
I was in just such a dry spell when I picked this book up after having seen in reviewed in the Idaho Statesman. I am so glad I did!
I will wait as patiently as possible for this author to write another novel.

This book is a real page turner that is masterfully written. I am eagerly awaiting a second novel from this author.

I lived in Idaho for three years and her story brought back many memories of the area. The characters were so interesting. I needed to keep reading to find out more about them. I am glad she wrote the ending she did and I am looking forward to her next book! Mary Sue Moore

Where has this author been?
This book was so masterfully written. The story is incredibly woven and layered. Don't think this is an old West story, it's not. You HAVE to read this book! Anyone know how I can be on a watch list for the next book by this author?

I know Heather Sharfeddin personally. I raise Blackbelly Sheep. I grew up in rural Idaho just a few miles from where Heather grew up. With all that being said, I loved this book. I read it in one day just days after it was released. I didn't want it to end. I still think of the characters and wonder how they are and what they are doing. As I was reading the first few pages, I kept thinking how amazing it was that Heather was the writer and that I knew her. It was not long before she took me away from that and led me into the lives of her characters. I am buying this book for almost everyone on my Christmas list. One of the best reads ever--and I read a lot!!

I love this book. On the first read, I stayed up until 2:00 a.m., turning page after page. Sharfeddin's prose is spare and beautiful, and her characters are finely drawn. The sense of place, rural Idaho in winter, is cold, snowy, and real. I found myself returning to the sheep ranch of my imagination long after the story finished. I particularly enjoyed the main character Chas, a gruff rancher stuck with a life and legacy he did not choose, accused of a crime he did not commit.

This book belongs on the shelf with Ivan Doig, Annie Proulx, and Craig Leslie. Sharfeddin has earned her place among the best contemporary writers of the American west.

I was disappointed when it ended, and I will be looking for more from this author.