Genre Fiction
![Lee Cole - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B0977VLDXW.jpg)
Groundskeeping: A novel
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • An indelible love story about two very different people navigating the entanglements of class and identity and coming of age in an America coming apart at the seams-this is "an extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations" (Ann Patchett, best-selling author of The Dutch House).
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course.
Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks-a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma-who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants-struggles to understand Owen's fraught relationship with family and home.
Exquisitely written; expertly crafted; dazzling in its precision, restraint, and depth of feeling, Groundskeeping is a novel of haunting power and grace from a prodigiously gifted young writer.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course.
Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks-a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma-who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants-struggles to understand Owen's fraught relationship with family and home.
Exquisitely written; expertly crafted; dazzling in its precision, restraint, and depth of feeling, Groundskeeping is a novel of haunting power and grace from a prodigiously gifted young writer.
Editorial Reviews
"Scrupulously perceptive . . . Groundskeeping is filled with close observation, detailed shading. It is an absorbing love story, but it is also an examination of class in America, and it captures with sharp insight a moment in recent history."
-Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn
"An extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations--this is a fierce, tender, and wholly unforgettable work from a hugely gifted writer."
-Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
"A coming-of-age story inextricably bound with a love story, Groundskeeping gets at the hard work of finding your place in the world, the burden and exhilaration of fighting for who you might be . . . It's frankly preposterous this is a debut novel when Lee Cole's writing has such ease and authority and his storytelling rings so true."
-Maggie Shipstead, author of Great Circle
"Groundskeeping is a smart, funny, exhilarating debut about that time in life when you are clawing your way to a future that feels murky and impossible to reach. Lee Cole takes a hard look at our fraught cultural moment, our divides large and small, with fresh insight and wisdom and tenderness. I truly loved it."
-Lily King, author of Euphoria and Writers & Lovers
"It's one thing for a writer to have a great eye and another for him to know what it's for. Lee Cole's constantly roving eye is sharp and unerring and it misses exactly nothing. In his debut novel, Groundskeeping, he witnesses with great sympathy the painful passage between youth and adulthood that leaves us all the worse for wear."
-Richard Russo, author of Straight Man
"Groundskeeping is a deeply American, of-the-moment novel (think Trump-y relatives and hyperpartisan class woes) written with such exquisite language that it seems destined to break the bounds of time." -Vulture
"Cole's novel is more than a love story or a coming-of-age tale. Written with superb attention to detail and subtle emotional complexities, the book also offers a lovingly nuanced look at America-its longtime residents and recent immigrants; its ramshackle rural beauty, urban revival, and suburban safety; and its generous opportunities for reinvention. In the end, it is a love letter to home . . . Perceptive and endearing, this novel signals the arrival of a talented new voice in fiction." -Kirkus Reviews [starred review]
"With brilliant descriptions of the rural South, Cole's slow burn of a debut novel achingly explores the definition of home, fate, and our shared humanity." -Poornima Apte, Booklist [starre...
-Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn
"An extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations--this is a fierce, tender, and wholly unforgettable work from a hugely gifted writer."
-Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
"A coming-of-age story inextricably bound with a love story, Groundskeeping gets at the hard work of finding your place in the world, the burden and exhilaration of fighting for who you might be . . . It's frankly preposterous this is a debut novel when Lee Cole's writing has such ease and authority and his storytelling rings so true."
-Maggie Shipstead, author of Great Circle
"Groundskeeping is a smart, funny, exhilarating debut about that time in life when you are clawing your way to a future that feels murky and impossible to reach. Lee Cole takes a hard look at our fraught cultural moment, our divides large and small, with fresh insight and wisdom and tenderness. I truly loved it."
-Lily King, author of Euphoria and Writers & Lovers
"It's one thing for a writer to have a great eye and another for him to know what it's for. Lee Cole's constantly roving eye is sharp and unerring and it misses exactly nothing. In his debut novel, Groundskeeping, he witnesses with great sympathy the painful passage between youth and adulthood that leaves us all the worse for wear."
-Richard Russo, author of Straight Man
"Groundskeeping is a deeply American, of-the-moment novel (think Trump-y relatives and hyperpartisan class woes) written with such exquisite language that it seems destined to break the bounds of time." -Vulture
"Cole's novel is more than a love story or a coming-of-age tale. Written with superb attention to detail and subtle emotional complexities, the book also offers a lovingly nuanced look at America-its longtime residents and recent immigrants; its ramshackle rural beauty, urban revival, and suburban safety; and its generous opportunities for reinvention. In the end, it is a love letter to home . . . Perceptive and endearing, this novel signals the arrival of a talented new voice in fiction." -Kirkus Reviews [starred review]
"With brilliant descriptions of the rural South, Cole's slow burn of a debut novel achingly explores the definition of home, fate, and our shared humanity." -Poornima Apte, Booklist [starre...
Readers Top Reviews
Kimberly KieserNancy
"Groundskeeping" by Lee Cole is the story of two people from very different backgrounds and social classes who meet while one (Owen) is a student/groundskeeper at a small liberal arts college and the other (Alma) is a visiting writer on a fellowship. Owen and Alma fall in love easily but soon find that their differences may be too much to overcome. Owen comes from a lower income family of Evangelical Trump supporters and has past addiction problems. Alma is the child of wealthy Muslim Bosnian immigrants. Neither Owen or Alma are particularly likeable and though this book is beautifully written, I had difficulty staying engaged with the story at times. However, the author did not shy away from difficult and relevant issues such as class, prejudice, and addiction which I appreciated. Overall, this isn't a book I would read again but it was a good way to pass the time on a ten hour flight.
Short Excerpt Teaser
I've always had the same predicament. When I'm home, in Kentucky, all I want is to leave. When I'm away, I'm homesick for a place that never was.
This is what I told Alma the night we met.
A grad student had thrown a party, and we'd both gone. I don't know how long we'd been talking or how the conversation started, but I'd seen her watching me. That's why I went over. She was watching me like I might try to steal something from her.
What does that mean, a place that never was? she said.
All around us, people were talking in groups of twos and threes. It was a house way out in the country, decorated in the way you'd expect of a grad student-someone with an overdeveloped sense of irony and curation, who also happened to be broke. Foreign film posters. A lamp made from antlers with a buckskin shade. Those chili pepper Christmas lights. We were standing in the pink glow of a Wurlitzer jukebox. In her right hand, she held a Solo cup and an unlit cigarette. Her long denim skirt was of the kind I associated with Pentecostals. On the other side of the Wurlitzer stood a life-sized cardboard cutout of Walt Whitman-the one where he's got his hat cocked and his fist on his hip. I kept catching sight of him in my periphery and thinking it was another person standing there, eavesdropping.
I don't know what I'm talking about, I said. I'm a little drunk.
I can tell, she said. She took a sip of her drink and slipped her bra strap back onto her shoulder. She looked around for a moment, sort of bobbing her head to the music, which was not coming from the jukebox, but from some other mysterious source. People were dancing in an attention-seeking way. She let her eyes pass over them briefly, then she turned back to me and shook her hair. It was all tangled and cut short in a kind of bob. The sort of dark hair that seemed red in a certain light-the light from the Wurlitzer, for instance.
I hail from Virginia myself, she said, putting on a phony accent.
Do you ever feel a sense of suffocation when you think about it? Like, you start to hyperventilate and sweat, and next thing you know, you're completely overcome with this fear that if you go home, you'll be trapped there and never be able to leave?
The question seemed to amuse her. No, she said.
Yeah, me neither, I said.
She laughed at this. I grew up in DC basically, she said. So, not the real Virginia. This is my first time in Kentucky.
Just visiting?
Something like that. It's not what I expected.
Did you expect all of us to play banjos and tie our pants with rope?
She laughed again. No, she said, I just thought it'd be-I don't know. She gnawed on her lip and looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right word.
Trashier?
That isn't the way I'd put it.
You go to the right places, you'll find that. Where I grew up is like that.
And where is that?
I grew up in Melber, I said, but it's not much more than a stop sign and a post office.
And it's . . . under-resourced?
A flicker of memory: every Halloween of my childhood, a round bale of hay was soaked in kerosene, lit on fire, and rolled downhill on Melber's main thoroughfare. People lined the street to watch as the bale jounced and tumbled, embers floating upward, bits of smoldering straw scattered in the road. I thought about this spectacle, and how no one ever explained to me why it was done, or for what purpose beyond entertainment and half-baked tradition. I remembered my dad's heavy hands on my shoulders and the heat from the flames on my cheeks, how you could see the glimmer reflected in everyone's eyes. And so, yes, in a town without a movie theater or a mall, where burning a bale of hay counted as entertainment, I thought it was safe to say that Melber was under-resourced.
I say I'm from Paducah, I told her. It's the closest major town- if you can call it that. They sell these T-shirts that say paducah, kentucky: halfway between possum trot and monkey's eyebrow. Then there's a cartoon picture of a monkey and possum, hanging by their tails from separate trees, reaching out to each other, Sistine Chapel–style.
Wait, how is it between a monkey and a possum?
Geographically, I said. Those are the names of towns-Possum Trot and Monkey's Eyebrow.
No.
Yes.
That's amazing.
I could think of another word.
Well, she said, you're not there anymore. She raised her beer to me. I didn't have a drink at the moment, so I fist-bumped the Solo cup. She was closer to me than she needed to be, I thought-close enough that I could see the faint hairs on her upper lip and feel the heat from her body and her breath. I couldn't place what it was about h...
This is what I told Alma the night we met.
A grad student had thrown a party, and we'd both gone. I don't know how long we'd been talking or how the conversation started, but I'd seen her watching me. That's why I went over. She was watching me like I might try to steal something from her.
What does that mean, a place that never was? she said.
All around us, people were talking in groups of twos and threes. It was a house way out in the country, decorated in the way you'd expect of a grad student-someone with an overdeveloped sense of irony and curation, who also happened to be broke. Foreign film posters. A lamp made from antlers with a buckskin shade. Those chili pepper Christmas lights. We were standing in the pink glow of a Wurlitzer jukebox. In her right hand, she held a Solo cup and an unlit cigarette. Her long denim skirt was of the kind I associated with Pentecostals. On the other side of the Wurlitzer stood a life-sized cardboard cutout of Walt Whitman-the one where he's got his hat cocked and his fist on his hip. I kept catching sight of him in my periphery and thinking it was another person standing there, eavesdropping.
I don't know what I'm talking about, I said. I'm a little drunk.
I can tell, she said. She took a sip of her drink and slipped her bra strap back onto her shoulder. She looked around for a moment, sort of bobbing her head to the music, which was not coming from the jukebox, but from some other mysterious source. People were dancing in an attention-seeking way. She let her eyes pass over them briefly, then she turned back to me and shook her hair. It was all tangled and cut short in a kind of bob. The sort of dark hair that seemed red in a certain light-the light from the Wurlitzer, for instance.
I hail from Virginia myself, she said, putting on a phony accent.
Do you ever feel a sense of suffocation when you think about it? Like, you start to hyperventilate and sweat, and next thing you know, you're completely overcome with this fear that if you go home, you'll be trapped there and never be able to leave?
The question seemed to amuse her. No, she said.
Yeah, me neither, I said.
She laughed at this. I grew up in DC basically, she said. So, not the real Virginia. This is my first time in Kentucky.
Just visiting?
Something like that. It's not what I expected.
Did you expect all of us to play banjos and tie our pants with rope?
She laughed again. No, she said, I just thought it'd be-I don't know. She gnawed on her lip and looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right word.
Trashier?
That isn't the way I'd put it.
You go to the right places, you'll find that. Where I grew up is like that.
And where is that?
I grew up in Melber, I said, but it's not much more than a stop sign and a post office.
And it's . . . under-resourced?
A flicker of memory: every Halloween of my childhood, a round bale of hay was soaked in kerosene, lit on fire, and rolled downhill on Melber's main thoroughfare. People lined the street to watch as the bale jounced and tumbled, embers floating upward, bits of smoldering straw scattered in the road. I thought about this spectacle, and how no one ever explained to me why it was done, or for what purpose beyond entertainment and half-baked tradition. I remembered my dad's heavy hands on my shoulders and the heat from the flames on my cheeks, how you could see the glimmer reflected in everyone's eyes. And so, yes, in a town without a movie theater or a mall, where burning a bale of hay counted as entertainment, I thought it was safe to say that Melber was under-resourced.
I say I'm from Paducah, I told her. It's the closest major town- if you can call it that. They sell these T-shirts that say paducah, kentucky: halfway between possum trot and monkey's eyebrow. Then there's a cartoon picture of a monkey and possum, hanging by their tails from separate trees, reaching out to each other, Sistine Chapel–style.
Wait, how is it between a monkey and a possum?
Geographically, I said. Those are the names of towns-Possum Trot and Monkey's Eyebrow.
No.
Yes.
That's amazing.
I could think of another word.
Well, she said, you're not there anymore. She raised her beer to me. I didn't have a drink at the moment, so I fist-bumped the Solo cup. She was closer to me than she needed to be, I thought-close enough that I could see the faint hairs on her upper lip and feel the heat from her body and her breath. I couldn't place what it was about h...
