“Hieroglyphics is a novel that tugs at the deepest places of the human soul–a beautiful, heart-piercing meditation on life and death and the marks we leave on this world. It is the work of a wonderful writer at her finest and most profound.” –Jessica Shattuck, author of The Women in the Castle After many years in Boston, Lil and Frank have retired to North Carolina. The two of them married … North Carolina. The two of them married young, having bonded over how they both–suddenly, tragically–lost a parent when they were children. Now, Lil has become deterÂmined to leave a history for their own kids. She sifts through letters and notes and diary entries, uncovering old stories–and perhaps revealing more secrets than Frank wants their children to know.
Meanwhile, Frank has become obsessed with the house he lived in as a boy on the outskirts of town, where a young single mother, Shelley, is now raising her son. For Shelley, Frank’s repeated visits begin to trigger memories of her own family, memories that she’d hoped to keep buried. Because, after all, not all parents are ones you wish to remember.
Empathetic and profound, this novel from master storyteller Jill McCorkle deconstructs and reconstructs what it means to be a father or a mother, and to be a child trying to know your parents–a child learning to make sense of the hieroglyphics of history and memory.
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Any time spent reading Jill McCorkle will be rewarding. Her writing is breathtaking! This one will have you thinking about your own life and what you’re holding onto, literally and figuratively.
Jill McCorkle has long been one of our wryest, warmest, wisest storytellers. In Hieroglyphics, she takes us on through decades, through loss, through redemption, and lands in revelation and grace. As always with McCorkle, the story feels so effortless and true that we might well miss what a high-wire act she’s performing. But make no mistake: She’s up there without a net, she never misses a step, and it’s spectacular.
Here is a link to my full review, which appeared on July 28,2020 in The New York Journal of Books:
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/hieroglyphics
I am very close in age to one of the main characters in this wonderful novel and I understand Lil’s need to search her past and figure out how she ended up where she is now. Some of her quests for the truth in her past get a bit jumbled up but her intentions remain the same – Who am I and how did I get to this point in my life?
Lil and Frank married young and after 50 years at their house in Boston, they re-locate to a home in North Carolina to be close to their daughter. Lil is determined to leave a history for her children and grandchildren so she starts going through her notes and letters and diary entries from her life. Frank is becoming obsessed with the home he grew up in and keeps visiting the house to try to get the current owner to let him go through the house. Shelly a single mom with one son, doesn’t have good memories of her upbringing and doesn’t allow Frank into the house or near her son. Both Frank and Lil are spending time looking at their pasts while Shelly is trying not to think about her past.
After reading this book, I wonder if it’s time to collect all of my notes and letters and try to make some sense of my life to share with my son and my grandson and help them learn more about my life but more importantly for me to figure out how I got to where I am now.
This beautifully written book is a look at old age and memories of the past.
Thanks to goodreads for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
Jill McCorkle Crafts a Layered Tale of Love, Pain, and Family in “Hieroglyphics.” I enjoyed interviewing the author on Charlotte Readers Podcast.
Jumbled And Disjointed, Yet Somehow Works. This is one of those books that arguably *shouldn’t* work, given how truly disjointed it is with its time period and character jumps, and yet as more of a meditation/ reflective work on life and death, it really does actually work. As we work through the various streams of consciousness of Fred, Lil, Shelley, and Harvey, we see each of their lives through their own eyes as they struggle with past, present, life, and death. We see the traumas large and small, the regrets and the victories, the confusions and the joys. Admittedly, the particular writing style will be hard to follow for some, and even I found it quite jarring despite my own abilities to largely go with any flow of a book. But in the end it really does work to tell a cohesive yet complex story, and really that is all anyone can ultimately ask of a fiction tale. Thus, there is nothing of the quasi-objective nature that I try to maintain to hang any star reduction on, even as many readers may struggle with this tale. And thus, it is very much recommended.
Hieroglyphics is suffused with a deep and heartening understanding of human resilience and strength. A beautiful and emotionally satisfying novel.
Wise and tender, Hieroglyphics captures life itself: the experiences that shape us and bind us to one another, and the moments of terror and grace we carry in our hearts. Jill McCorkle’s new novel is a triumph.
Hieroglyphics is a novel that tugs at the deepest places of the human soul—a beautiful, heart piercing meditation on life and death and the marks we leave on this world. It is the work of a wonderful writer at her finest and most profound.
What will you hold onto and what will you leave behind? This story explores life and death and the secrets we keep especially from our children. There are flashbacks and alternating perspectives told from three people. It was sad but powerful and emotional for me.
Thank you Algonquin for a complimentary copy and for including me on the book tour. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Hieroglyphics
By: Jill McCorkle
REVIEW
I have a love/hate relationship with Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle. This story is expertly crafted in a non linear narrative with multiple points of view. It is so insightful, compelling and thought provoking that it astounds me. But, the subject matter is heavy, bleak and leaning towards dark much more than light. I’m torn because the author did fabulous work, but the story is so depressing to me. The nature of life and death, legacies, memory and the past are all haunting in some way. When I read this type of story, melancholy sets in, but the author’s skill merits more than the sadness I feel. I think going in blind is better, so I’ll just say don’t expect rainbows. You can, however, expect, a sense of loss and longing looking back on your own life. I recommend for more studious and mature readers.
Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle
The book was decent, good even. It’s a very character driven, slow burn novel. The plot was interesting enough to kept my interest. However, the multiple POVs didn’t work well with this book, in my opinion. Like mentioned before, this book is good but maybe a bit complicated, leaving you mentally exhausted when you finish… but not in a good way.
Bottom line: an okay book, but confusing more times than not.
And I guess that’s why we hold on to our bits and pieces in the first place, because we aren’t immortal, and though denial fills our days and years, especially those that have slipped away, that kernel of truth is always lodged within. We are all haunted by something– ~from Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle
Through a dozen moves and the purges each involved, there were boxes that followed me. They remained sealed and taped in each successive basement, but I knew they were there for when I would need them.
The boxes held my diaries dating back to 1963 when I was ten, poems and unfinished novels I had written, scrapbooks and mementos.
There were other boxes, too. Boxes of photographs and slides, books owned by my grandfather or mother or father, my grandfather’s papers and newspaper articles, directories and yearbooks, dad’s memoirs, mom’s medical history.
They were the ‘bits and pieces’ of my life and my parent’s life and my grandfather’s life.
I have always been a keeper of things. I see the trait in my family, especially keeping memories and telling stories of long ago.
In Jill McCorkle’s new novel Hieroglyphics, Lil is eighty-five and worried about forgetting, but her childhood memories remain vivid and clear. “I can close my eyes and know every square inch,” she says of her childhood home.
Oh, me, too! I dream of the 19th c farmhouse I grew up in. I know the view from every window by heart, the turning of the stairs, the weight of layers of blankets in the unheated bedroom.
“I am homesick and I am timesick…I miss all that no longer is,” Lil says.
Lil is married to Frank, who is also haunted by the past, filled with “sadness and an awareness of the shadows.” When he was ten years old his father died in a train wreck, extinguishing his mother’s happiness. Frank is fixated on returning to his childhood home, hoping to find what he left behind.
Frank’s childhood home is now occupied by single mom Shelley and her child Harvey. Harvey is fearful, misses his father, sees ghosts, and losses himself in an alter-ego superhero with a mustache that covers the scar from his cleft palate surgery. Shelley is a court reporter who is overinvolved with the trial, in trouble for writing her thoughts into the transcript.
Each character is struggling with the scars of their past. They have kept things secret, they seek to understand the mystery of their parents.
This is a dense book, emotionally charged, with a story that opens like a night blooming flower. There is darkness, with some flashes of humor and light. It tugged at my heart. And it chilled me with recognition and the knowledge that in the blink of an eye I will be Lil, leaving behind those boxes of diaries.
I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Jill McCorkle writes a captivating story that is powerful, emotional and deeply moving, about ordinary people trying to make sense of their life, the stories that shape them, and what they leave as legacy to their children.
The story is centered on Lil and Frank, both retirees from Boston moving to North Carolina to be closer to their daughter, and Shelley a court reporter and her troubled son Harvey. The story is told in their POVs and just like our memories and personal stories, they are remembered sporadically and non linear. I thought this was really creative way of storytelling that is immersive and sentimental.
McCorkle is a brilliant writer and storyteller. I enjoyed this fantastic read.
Jill McCorkle, the author of “Hieroglyphics” has written a poignant and intriguing novel. The Genres for this novel are Literary Fiction and Family Drama. Much of the story takes place in North Carolina. There are various timelines in this story. The author describes her characters as complex, complicated, dysfunctional. The themes of this story deal with the obsession of death, and the difficulty of living. There is a contrast between older characters, vs. younger characters, the children. Many of the ideas that have passed through the generations have been imprinted from the grandparents to the parents to the children.
Jill McCorkle vividly describes the characters, the events, the plot, and the scenery. This is a challenging and at times difficult book to read. Each of the characters has the memories of their family which some choose to relive and some choose to forget. Some of the family deaths were from a train wreck and a fire. A few of the characters are obsessed with the scene of the accident.
Frank and Lil are an older couple. Frank is obsessed with death, and Lil records and keeps notes of what is going on. Frank wants to visit his childhood home where Shelley is raising a young troubled son. Shelley is fearful of letting the older man and his wife come into the house. Shelley’s son is obsessed with strange and weird things, and because of his strange ideas presents a problem acting out in school. Shelley transcribes cases in the court and recently has been immersed in a murder.
This is a heavy thought-provoking novel that I would recommend for readers who enjoy a challenge and a dark story.
I had no idea when I started this beautifully written novel that it would trigger so many wonderful, and at times sad, memories of my grandparents while also forcing me to reflect on my forty-something life. It’s funny how we cherish very different things as we age and some of the moments we regard as dull tend to flower with time. Jill McCorkle has the ability to make average moments feel significant in a way that resonates with you long after the book is closed. For those who love literary fiction by authors like Elizabeth Strout and Louise Erdrich, you will love this book.
The characters were very real and well thought out. The language looms with the reader through memories that feel like scraps of paper taped to a rainy window. Although at times the story shifts in a scattered manner, I found that my slight confusion only added to the sense of age, loss, and disorientation. I’m positive that wasn’t Jill McCorkle’s intention, but even when I had to pause to figure out who or where I was, I continued to be engaged in the book.
McCorkle has woven a quilt of three average adults who have hidden secrets or details of their life as a way to control their own narrative or feel stable. At the end of life, when it becomes so difficult to decipher threads of time, that control tends to become less important or even possible. This book explores the way we remember the good and the bad and how those nuggets of wisdom can prevent us from seeing the entire picture until we are too far away to fix them.
Thank you, Algonquin Books, for inviting me to read this heartfelt book and thank you, Jill McCorkle for writing it.