Jewel (Oprah's Book Club) - Softcover

"The Chicago Tribune"Bret Lott's "Jewel" is a beautifully crafted first-person epic of one poor Southern woman's personal duel with God....This is a voice we don't want to stop hearing....Some of the tenderest scenes of family love since those in Dickens.

In the backwoods of Mississippi, Jewel and her husband are truly blessed; they have five fine children. When Brenda Kay is born in 1943, Jewel gives thanks for a healthy baby, last-born and most welcome. "Jewel" is the story of how quickly a life can change; how an unforeseen event can set us on a course without reason or compass. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction.