by Rick Bass. Even though stand-out nature and fiction writer Bass mined history in his last novel, The Diezmo (2005), this fictionalized portrait of the top-of-the-charts country trio, Maxine, Bonnie, and Jim Ed Brown, seems at first glance like a departure. But its acute insights into the living world and how human feelings mesh with nature is quintessential Bass. As is the novel's divining tone. Raised in the backwoods of Arkansas, where their hard-driving father runs a sawmill, the young, talented Browns are renowned for their perfect harmonies, even as their temperaments diverge. Pragmatic Jim Ed performs to survive. Gentle Bonnie cares more for family than applause. Maxine is addicted to the limelight, first as a homecoming queen unable to afford a prom dress, then as an aggressively ambitious star, and finally as a reclusive octogenarian cataloging her memories. The story of the trio's grueling and exciting lives, including their complex relationships with Elvis, is utterly compelling. But what makes this novel sing is Bass' sensuous evocations of the glory of sound and the cosmic resonance of music amid the beauty of the wild, and his mythic rendering of Maxine's conflagrations and rise from the ashes. An empathic, breath-catching, and profoundly American tale of creation, destruction, and renewal. --Booklist
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