Halfway through reading Bren McClain’s One Good Mama Bone, which won the 2017 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, I kept thinking about the title of Zora Neale Hurston’s famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I couldn’t help but apply it to Bren’s book, but with a twist. Because when it comes to the characters that populate One Good Mama Bone, I think it’s safe to say their eyes were watching each other.
Sometimes it’s a neighbor watching out for another neighbor in friendship, other times out of mistrust or greed. Even a mother cow is watching…mostly for the wellbeing of her calf, Lucky, a young steer at the center of this tug-of-war between performing good deeds to help others or misdeeds to get ahead in life. And for one character in particular, bitter wounds from childhood drive him to act on impulses of pure spite and jealousy. Just when you think he has some redeeming value; he throws you for a loop.
From the adults and young boys in this tale of hardship and hope, each character is wrestling with choices. Some have good intentions but constantly come up short. Like in real life, most people are neither all good nor all bad but somewhere in-between. Aren’t we all constantly wrestling to overcome dark thoughts and impulses? And once in a while, help comes from the most unexpected people.
Bren McClain has given birth to story people who feel as real as family and friends and neighbors. They live and breathe beyond the page, and take up residence in your heart and head, even when you’re not reading.
The story is set primarily in rural South Carolina between 1944 and 1952.
I highly recommend it!!
Author
kathywentzhawkins
3 years ago
1950’s South Carolina cattle range industry. Sympathetic as well despicable characters from 3 interacting families. Hard to put down after the first 100 pages.
Author
rsailer1
3 years ago
This is Southern writing at it’s best. It’s the story of Sarah Creamer in 1952 raising her husband’s illegitimate son as a single mother. She has very little money but sees an ad that the champion beef can win $680. She sets out to get her step-son, Emerson, a calf. Her wealthy neighbor, Luther, also wants to win- for the glory of it. Luther also has a son whom he places great stress on. This is a story of love, but also of jealousy and disaster. It’s definitely worth the read.
Author
vivianmpayton
3 years ago
In this award-winning novel by Bren McClain, ONE GOOD MAMA BONE is about family, hard times, sacrifice and love. The character of Sarah Creamer is one that will stay with me due to her strength, tenacity and giving nature. In the story she believes otherwise, but I have never had a character move me so much. She is empowering, and anyone who reads this novel, I’m sure, will feel the same.
Mama Red, the loving mother cow, is Sarah’s mentor and teacher who demonstrates how to raise a young one. This gentle animal’s fierce love for her baby calf is the guiding light and pillar of strength which makes Sarah become who she is and teaches her how to raise her young son, Emerson Bridge. The bond between Sarah and Mama Red will touch your heart as will Sarah’s love for her son.
I was so honored to read this story. It pulls on your heartstrings. The love in this novel is so powerful and endearing, and the reader’s emotions will be stirring long after the book is finished. This novel is added to one of the best books I’ve read. It comes HIGHLY recommended, and I’ll be waiting patiently for this author’s next novel to be published.
1 like
Author
harryvanbeuningen
3 years ago
Rubbish
Author
eldonnaedwards
3 years ago
I enjoyed the audible version of ONE GOOD MAMA BONE while on my daily walks and let me tell you, I’ve never been more motivated to lace up my sneaks each day to get back to this book! The story is haunting, the prose stunning and the narration downright exquisite. Told from multiple points of view, the book opens with Mama Red as she gives birth to twin calves. Any writer who can get inside of a cow’s head in such a visceral way and make the reader identify so beautifully with the tormented animal is one talented author. I was hooked from the start and the story continues to haunt me days after I finished. This moving novel set in the deep 1950’s south will resonate deeply with readers who enjoy stories of hardship and hope, innocence and survival. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.
I highly recommend the audible version as Bren McClain inhabits her characters so fully that you lose yourself to them and to her as she immerses you in their homes, their too-small shoes, their musky hides, their broken hearts and their indomitable spirits. You will smell the wood fires and cattle and pine dust. You will feel the child’s longings and the adult’s yearning to meet them. You will hear the sewing machine as it hums, see the tired fingers pushing the fabric, taste the sausage and biscuits spread out on a wealthy neighbor’s table. You will be so glad you picked up this book.
Author
suzyapprovedbookreviews
3 years ago
In rural South Carolina in the early 1950’s, Sarah Creamer adopts her best friend’s baby boy after her tragic suicide. Seven years later when Sarah’s husband dies, she is left without the resources to care for Emerson. She has never had a real job and is short on money and family support. She fears that she doesn’t have the mothering skills to raise this child on her own.
Sarah has been struggling to support her family by making dresses for the local women and is barely surviving. One day, Sarah reads about a local steer competition with a substantial cash prize. Facing limited options, she decides to buy a calf for Emerson to raise for the next competition. She ends up with a second animal when the calf’s mom, Mama Red, escapes from her owner and ends up in the Creamer’s yard. Mama Red becomes important to Sarah and becomes an outlet to discuss her feelings about motherhood. As the date of the competition draws closer, Sara develops some unlikely friendships that were unthinkable years ago.
This is a stunning debut novel by Bren McCain. One Good Mama Bone will make you ponder the bonds of love, parenting, and the struggles that are endured. I am impatiently waiting for this author’s next book.
Author
clairefullerton
3 years ago
Once you attune yourself to the voice of this emotionally evocative story, it’ll submerge you in language like water running in a creek bed. Author Bren McClain takes the reader to a down on its luck farm, in the esoteric pocket of rural 1950’s Anderson, South Carolina and delivers lines, such as “Get the by God out of my clean yard” and “He’d probably be drunk as a coot and trying to have relations with his common law.” It is McClain’s uncompromising use of language that gives us the consciousness of each character in this purpose driven story, who are all linked to each other by the common pursuit of raising a steer to enter into the 1952 Fat Cattle Show and Sale, with dreams of winning the monetary prize awarded to its Grand Champion. Every character has its own agenda, and the best and worst of human nature is depicted as we follow the motivation of each principal character to the destination of one fateful day. One Good Mama Bone opens with a birth’s gripping drama and never turns the reader loose throughout its breath-catching, suspenseful build. It gives us a protagonist in single mother Sarah Creamer, who doggedly fights the constraints of poverty and wrestles with her own beaten down identity, all in the name of selfless love for her young son, Emerson Bridge. Sarah’s quest tugs at the heartstrings with the lure of her incremental maternal awakening, as reflected in her relationship with a mother cow named Mama Red. That this story contains a nemesis in the contentious, self-serving cattleman Luther Dobbins, who throws up one heart-stopping obstacle after another on the road to Sarah and Emerson Bridges’ goal keeps the pages turning to the very end. I loved this book for the mood that descended every time I returned to its pages. It’s a rare book that hands you a life you can slip into, and an even rarer writer that’ll give you a million reasons to do it.
Author
denisebirt
3 years ago
BOOK REVIEW: One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
An evocative story of times gone by that is simple yet eloquent, realistic yet poetic. A page-turning narrative that is descriptive, redolent and emotionally satisfying. It is quiet, yet powerful. It exudes a freshness and is significant of that true southern feel.
Bren McClain has created a novel of substance that in my opinion rings the bell of excellence!
A setting in 1950’s South Carolina will lend to the senses as to its striking scenery, wisdom and kindness.
Bren has shaped the true pull of emotional bonds between humans and animals and made it as important in this story as the heartbreaking reality of poverty, of abuse, and the tenacity and drive to overcome life’s obstacles too a point of resolve and forgiveness.
The determination of our protagonist Sarah, is nothing short of “cheer-worthy” as she is faced with insurmountable issues, not of her own making.
The characters are written as strong and real, flaws and all…..ones you’ll come to love, and others, well…….Bren weaves the human condition and all that comes with it beautifully and with purpose!
A journey of love, life and sacrifice which will have you lingering on its every page as it flows seamlessly due to the author’s ability to capture your heart with her true southern way of storytelling.
I thank Bren McClain for gifting me, personally, the story of One Good Mama Bone. An unforgettable experience.
5 Stars
Novels & Latte Book Club
Novels N Latte Book Blog
Wild Sage Book Blog
Author
tmbrown
3 years ago
Best Southern Fiction of 2018 in my opinion. Bren is a uniquely talented artist with words carefully painting her story on the reader’s heart.
Author
mjw1259
3 years ago
A book about a lady and a cow, a boy and a lady and a boy and a cow. A book about love and heartache. What a great book
By brenmcclain
Halfway through reading Bren McClain’s One Good Mama Bone, which won the 2017 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, I kept thinking about the title of Zora Neale Hurston’s famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I couldn’t help but apply it to Bren’s book, but with a twist. Because when it comes to the characters that populate One Good Mama Bone, I think it’s safe to say their eyes were watching each other.
Sometimes it’s a neighbor watching out for another neighbor in friendship, other times out of mistrust or greed. Even a mother cow is watching…mostly for the wellbeing of her calf, Lucky, a young steer at the center of this tug-of-war between performing good deeds to help others or misdeeds to get ahead in life. And for one character in particular, bitter wounds from childhood drive him to act on impulses of pure spite and jealousy. Just when you think he has some redeeming value; he throws you for a loop.
From the adults and young boys in this tale of hardship and hope, each character is wrestling with choices. Some have good intentions but constantly come up short. Like in real life, most people are neither all good nor all bad but somewhere in-between. Aren’t we all constantly wrestling to overcome dark thoughts and impulses? And once in a while, help comes from the most unexpected people.
Bren McClain has given birth to story people who feel as real as family and friends and neighbors. They live and breathe beyond the page, and take up residence in your heart and head, even when you’re not reading.
The story is set primarily in rural South Carolina between 1944 and 1952.
I highly recommend it!!
1950’s South Carolina cattle range industry. Sympathetic as well despicable characters from 3 interacting families. Hard to put down after the first 100 pages.
This is Southern writing at it’s best. It’s the story of Sarah Creamer in 1952 raising her husband’s illegitimate son as a single mother. She has very little money but sees an ad that the champion beef can win $680. She sets out to get her step-son, Emerson, a calf. Her wealthy neighbor, Luther, also wants to win- for the glory of it. Luther also has a son whom he places great stress on. This is a story of love, but also of jealousy and disaster. It’s definitely worth the read.
In this award-winning novel by Bren McClain, ONE GOOD MAMA BONE is about family, hard times, sacrifice and love. The character of Sarah Creamer is one that will stay with me due to her strength, tenacity and giving nature. In the story she believes otherwise, but I have never had a character move me so much. She is empowering, and anyone who reads this novel, I’m sure, will feel the same.
Mama Red, the loving mother cow, is Sarah’s mentor and teacher who demonstrates how to raise a young one. This gentle animal’s fierce love for her baby calf is the guiding light and pillar of strength which makes Sarah become who she is and teaches her how to raise her young son, Emerson Bridge. The bond between Sarah and Mama Red will touch your heart as will Sarah’s love for her son.
I was so honored to read this story. It pulls on your heartstrings. The love in this novel is so powerful and endearing, and the reader’s emotions will be stirring long after the book is finished. This novel is added to one of the best books I’ve read. It comes HIGHLY recommended, and I’ll be waiting patiently for this author’s next novel to be published.
1 like
Rubbish
I enjoyed the audible version of ONE GOOD MAMA BONE while on my daily walks and let me tell you, I’ve never been more motivated to lace up my sneaks each day to get back to this book! The story is haunting, the prose stunning and the narration downright exquisite. Told from multiple points of view, the book opens with Mama Red as she gives birth to twin calves. Any writer who can get inside of a cow’s head in such a visceral way and make the reader identify so beautifully with the tormented animal is one talented author. I was hooked from the start and the story continues to haunt me days after I finished. This moving novel set in the deep 1950’s south will resonate deeply with readers who enjoy stories of hardship and hope, innocence and survival. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.
I highly recommend the audible version as Bren McClain inhabits her characters so fully that you lose yourself to them and to her as she immerses you in their homes, their too-small shoes, their musky hides, their broken hearts and their indomitable spirits. You will smell the wood fires and cattle and pine dust. You will feel the child’s longings and the adult’s yearning to meet them. You will hear the sewing machine as it hums, see the tired fingers pushing the fabric, taste the sausage and biscuits spread out on a wealthy neighbor’s table. You will be so glad you picked up this book.
In rural South Carolina in the early 1950’s, Sarah Creamer adopts her best friend’s baby boy after her tragic suicide. Seven years later when Sarah’s husband dies, she is left without the resources to care for Emerson. She has never had a real job and is short on money and family support. She fears that she doesn’t have the mothering skills to raise this child on her own.
Sarah has been struggling to support her family by making dresses for the local women and is barely surviving. One day, Sarah reads about a local steer competition with a substantial cash prize. Facing limited options, she decides to buy a calf for Emerson to raise for the next competition. She ends up with a second animal when the calf’s mom, Mama Red, escapes from her owner and ends up in the Creamer’s yard. Mama Red becomes important to Sarah and becomes an outlet to discuss her feelings about motherhood. As the date of the competition draws closer, Sara develops some unlikely friendships that were unthinkable years ago.
This is a stunning debut novel by Bren McCain. One Good Mama Bone will make you ponder the bonds of love, parenting, and the struggles that are endured. I am impatiently waiting for this author’s next book.
Once you attune yourself to the voice of this emotionally evocative story, it’ll submerge you in language like water running in a creek bed. Author Bren McClain takes the reader to a down on its luck farm, in the esoteric pocket of rural 1950’s Anderson, South Carolina and delivers lines, such as “Get the by God out of my clean yard” and “He’d probably be drunk as a coot and trying to have relations with his common law.” It is McClain’s uncompromising use of language that gives us the consciousness of each character in this purpose driven story, who are all linked to each other by the common pursuit of raising a steer to enter into the 1952 Fat Cattle Show and Sale, with dreams of winning the monetary prize awarded to its Grand Champion. Every character has its own agenda, and the best and worst of human nature is depicted as we follow the motivation of each principal character to the destination of one fateful day. One Good Mama Bone opens with a birth’s gripping drama and never turns the reader loose throughout its breath-catching, suspenseful build. It gives us a protagonist in single mother Sarah Creamer, who doggedly fights the constraints of poverty and wrestles with her own beaten down identity, all in the name of selfless love for her young son, Emerson Bridge. Sarah’s quest tugs at the heartstrings with the lure of her incremental maternal awakening, as reflected in her relationship with a mother cow named Mama Red. That this story contains a nemesis in the contentious, self-serving cattleman Luther Dobbins, who throws up one heart-stopping obstacle after another on the road to Sarah and Emerson Bridges’ goal keeps the pages turning to the very end. I loved this book for the mood that descended every time I returned to its pages. It’s a rare book that hands you a life you can slip into, and an even rarer writer that’ll give you a million reasons to do it.
BOOK REVIEW: One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
An evocative story of times gone by that is simple yet eloquent, realistic yet poetic. A page-turning narrative that is descriptive, redolent and emotionally satisfying. It is quiet, yet powerful. It exudes a freshness and is significant of that true southern feel.
Bren McClain has created a novel of substance that in my opinion rings the bell of excellence!
A setting in 1950’s South Carolina will lend to the senses as to its striking scenery, wisdom and kindness.
Bren has shaped the true pull of emotional bonds between humans and animals and made it as important in this story as the heartbreaking reality of poverty, of abuse, and the tenacity and drive to overcome life’s obstacles too a point of resolve and forgiveness.
The determination of our protagonist Sarah, is nothing short of “cheer-worthy” as she is faced with insurmountable issues, not of her own making.
The characters are written as strong and real, flaws and all…..ones you’ll come to love, and others, well…….Bren weaves the human condition and all that comes with it beautifully and with purpose!
A journey of love, life and sacrifice which will have you lingering on its every page as it flows seamlessly due to the author’s ability to capture your heart with her true southern way of storytelling.
I thank Bren McClain for gifting me, personally, the story of One Good Mama Bone. An unforgettable experience.
5 Stars
Novels & Latte Book Club
Novels N Latte Book Blog
Wild Sage Book Blog
Best Southern Fiction of 2018 in my opinion. Bren is a uniquely talented artist with words carefully painting her story on the reader’s heart.
A book about a lady and a cow, a boy and a lady and a boy and a cow. A book about love and heartache. What a great book