Dead Woman Hollow

Kass Fleisher is Associate Professor of English at Illinois State University. She is the author of Talking Out of School: Memoir of an Educated Woman; The Adventurous; Accidental Species; and The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History, also published by SUNY Press.

"The book begins secretively, mysteriously, in the mountains of Pennsylvania. And like the lives of the characters it is about to describe, it is devoid of frills … what appear to be three separate tales are so closely related that it is no surprise to find the main character in each has the same name: Jenny. She is central to the entire story, a story divided into three segments of time in America's history: from when the women's suffrage movement was first taking hold, then through the Depression, and ending in the 1980s. The Jenny of each story is inquisitive and aware, and she is possessed of an inner strength that finds its way off the pages to grip the reader." — ForeWord Reviews"This scalpel-sharp novel cuts swiftly (and for the reader, breathlessly) through the thin layer of America's pretend-righteousness, to expose the bloody violence that fuels our consumption and still directs our lives. One epic century's lies are pulled off like an animal skin by this skilled hunter. Kass Fleisher's people live inside American violence longer than they live in their houses. Amazingly, they remain tender and true. Dead Woman Hollow takes its place alongside True Grit, My Antonia, and Deliverance, as a take-no-prisoners classic in the American grain." — Andrei Codrescu, author of Whatever Gets You through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments

• Part IBeforePart IIAfterPart IIIA Note from the Author