Genre Fiction
![Kelli Jo Ford - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B082WL1D23.jpg)
Crooked Hallelujah
"A book that you want to share with everyone you know and one that you are desperate to keep in your own possession. A masterful debut and a new and thrilling voice for readers across the globe." ―Sarah Jessica Parker, on Instagram
It's 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and fifteen-year-old Justine grows up in a family of tough, complicated, and loyal women presided over by her mother, Lula, and Granny. After Justine's father abandoned the family, Lula became a devout member of the Holiness Church – a community that Justine at times finds stifling and terrifying. But Justine does her best as a devoted daughter until an act of violence sends her on a different path forever.
Crooked Hallelujah tells the stories of Justine―a mixed-blood Cherokee woman― and her daughter, Reney, as they move from Eastern Oklahoma's Indian Country in the hopes of starting a new, more stable life in Texas amid the oil bust of the 1980s. However, life in Texas isn't easy, and Reney feels unmoored from her family in Indian Country. Against the vivid backdrop of the Red River, we see their struggle to survive in a world―of unreliable men and near-Biblical natural forces, like wildfires and tornados―intent on stripping away their connections to one another and their very ideas of home.
In lush and empathic prose, Kelli Jo Ford depicts what this family of proud, stubborn, Cherokee women sacrifices for those they love, amid larger forces of history, religion, class, and culture. This is a big-hearted and ambitious novel of the powerful bonds between mothers and daughters by an exquisite and rare new talent.
It's 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and fifteen-year-old Justine grows up in a family of tough, complicated, and loyal women presided over by her mother, Lula, and Granny. After Justine's father abandoned the family, Lula became a devout member of the Holiness Church – a community that Justine at times finds stifling and terrifying. But Justine does her best as a devoted daughter until an act of violence sends her on a different path forever.
Crooked Hallelujah tells the stories of Justine―a mixed-blood Cherokee woman― and her daughter, Reney, as they move from Eastern Oklahoma's Indian Country in the hopes of starting a new, more stable life in Texas amid the oil bust of the 1980s. However, life in Texas isn't easy, and Reney feels unmoored from her family in Indian Country. Against the vivid backdrop of the Red River, we see their struggle to survive in a world―of unreliable men and near-Biblical natural forces, like wildfires and tornados―intent on stripping away their connections to one another and their very ideas of home.
In lush and empathic prose, Kelli Jo Ford depicts what this family of proud, stubborn, Cherokee women sacrifices for those they love, amid larger forces of history, religion, class, and culture. This is a big-hearted and ambitious novel of the powerful bonds between mothers and daughters by an exquisite and rare new talent.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Crooked Hallelujah New York Times Editors' Choice
"Top 10 New Books" by the New York Times
An Indies Introduce
An Indie Next Pick & A Library Reads Pick
"In her more than promising first novel, Crooked Hallelujah, Kelli Jo Ford summons the details of minimum-wage life in the last quarter of the 20th century….This is a novel in stories, a dread form in the wrong hands…But Crooked Hallelujah has a supple cohesiveness….[Ford's] book reads like a series of acoustic songs recorded on a single microphone in a bare room with a carpet. There are times when you might wish for more boldness, but she never puts a wrong foot. This is a writer who carefully husbands her resources. Small scenes begin to glitter." ―Dwight Garner, New York Times
"Kelli Jo Ford takes her readers on a compelling journey through the evolving terrain of multiple generations of women… This language is rich but never dense. There's a lightness to the perspective which shifts and bends, prismed by a matrilineal succession of Cherokee and mixed-race women… Ford's connection to her characters shines through the writing, infusing these voices with a sweet, sidelong zing." ―Washington Post
"[S]tunning and lovable… Ford has drawn characters who are earthy, honest and believable in how they resolve or reconcile to difficulties ― money, jobs, relationships with men. There are so many passages in this book that are moving…" ―Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[F]ull of poetry... Ford's prose is so absorbing that you're right there… [Her] pages ache with tenderness and love and no small amount of frustration… These stories stand up beautifully to rereading; they made me excited for what the writer will do next." ―San Francisco Chronicle
"Ford, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, offers a novel in short stories, allowing her to move with ease through perspectives, history and time. Each heartbreaking chapter slowly adds to the reader's understanding of these women and their increasingly difficult lives." ―TIME
"Kelli Jo Ford has penned an extraordinary debut set in 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma that is focused on mothers and daughters, the strength and sacrifices of women and the journey that growth requires." ―Ms. Magazine
"Electrifying... A riveting and important read." ―Booklist(starred review)
"[A] magnificent debut...Ford adroitly, affectingly weaves indigenous history into her spellbinding narrative, exposing displacement, unacknowledged violence, cultural erasure, relentless racism and socioeconomic disparity." ―Shelf Aw...
"Top 10 New Books" by the New York Times
An Indies Introduce
An Indie Next Pick & A Library Reads Pick
"In her more than promising first novel, Crooked Hallelujah, Kelli Jo Ford summons the details of minimum-wage life in the last quarter of the 20th century….This is a novel in stories, a dread form in the wrong hands…But Crooked Hallelujah has a supple cohesiveness….[Ford's] book reads like a series of acoustic songs recorded on a single microphone in a bare room with a carpet. There are times when you might wish for more boldness, but she never puts a wrong foot. This is a writer who carefully husbands her resources. Small scenes begin to glitter." ―Dwight Garner, New York Times
"Kelli Jo Ford takes her readers on a compelling journey through the evolving terrain of multiple generations of women… This language is rich but never dense. There's a lightness to the perspective which shifts and bends, prismed by a matrilineal succession of Cherokee and mixed-race women… Ford's connection to her characters shines through the writing, infusing these voices with a sweet, sidelong zing." ―Washington Post
"[S]tunning and lovable… Ford has drawn characters who are earthy, honest and believable in how they resolve or reconcile to difficulties ― money, jobs, relationships with men. There are so many passages in this book that are moving…" ―Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[F]ull of poetry... Ford's prose is so absorbing that you're right there… [Her] pages ache with tenderness and love and no small amount of frustration… These stories stand up beautifully to rereading; they made me excited for what the writer will do next." ―San Francisco Chronicle
"Ford, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, offers a novel in short stories, allowing her to move with ease through perspectives, history and time. Each heartbreaking chapter slowly adds to the reader's understanding of these women and their increasingly difficult lives." ―TIME
"Kelli Jo Ford has penned an extraordinary debut set in 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma that is focused on mothers and daughters, the strength and sacrifices of women and the journey that growth requires." ―Ms. Magazine
"Electrifying... A riveting and important read." ―Booklist(starred review)
"[A] magnificent debut...Ford adroitly, affectingly weaves indigenous history into her spellbinding narrative, exposing displacement, unacknowledged violence, cultural erasure, relentless racism and socioeconomic disparity." ―Shelf Aw...
Readers Top Reviews
JoBeth Shaffer
I loved this book. It follows the lives of Justine and Reney through all the challenges they face and overcome in life. Justine is a child raising a child, they grow up together. Life was not easy for them. I found myself laughing through parts, then having to grab tissues and wait until the tears dried to continue reading in other parts. Can’t wait for Kelli Jo’s next book.
Kindle
What a beautiful story! I wanted to help these heroic women as they navigated a difficult and tangled path. Excellent writing, wonderful characters. Read it and treasure the experience!
Rebecca Henley
Loved Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford! Mothers and daughters are known to have a special/difficult relationships, and this story lets the reader see how wonderful/hard that can sometimes be. Didn’t want to put it down!
Leslie KelsayAdam Br
Life is hard, and it's easier to make it harder than it is to make it easier. If you start with nothing, it's hard to get something. Count only on yourself. That's kind of it for 95% of "Crooked Hallelujah" and then BAM here comes a magical, lifting epilogue. Three generations of Cherokee women in near-contemporary Oklahoma and Texas have the lives of hard-working, rent-scrabbling women everywhere who link up with listless or ruthless men. Untethered from their spiritual heritage and wound up in an ultra-fundamentalist church, these women don't give the reader a lot to root for. There's truth here, but the overwhelming theme is futility. Until that epilogue. If you're weighing reading "Crooked Hallelujah" or another book, you might want to go with the other book.
