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The Line That Held Us Hardcover – August 14, 2018

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 640 ratings

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From critically acclaimed author David Joy comes a remarkable novel about the cover-up of an accidental death, and the dark consequences that reverberate through the lives of four people who will never be the same again.

When Darl Moody went hunting after a monster buck he's chased for years, he never expected he'd accidentally shoot a man digging ginseng. Worse yet, he's killed a Brewer, a family notorious for vengeance and violence. With nowhere to turn, Darl calls on the help of the only man he knows will answer, his best friend, Calvin Hooper. But when Dwayne Brewer comes looking for his missing brother and stumbles onto a blood trail leading straight back to Darl and Calvin, a nightmare of revenge rips apart their world.
The Line That Held Us is a story of friendship and family, a tale balanced between destruction and redemption, where the only hope is to hold on tight, clenching to those you love. What will you do for the people who mean the most, and what will you grasp to when all that you have is gone? The only certainty in a place so shredded is that no one will get away unscathed.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Unflinching . . . Joy writes about rough-hewn men and women eking out a living in an economically depressed area, trying to avoid—but often affected by—violence and drugs that permeate the region. Their lives are tied to the land, its history and their families who established lives there decades ago.”—Associated Press

More Praise for The Line That Held Us
 
“A suspenseful page-turner, complete with one of the absolutely killer endings that have become one of Joy’s signatures.”—
Los Angeles Times

“Exquisitely written, heart-wrenching . . . Joy’s descriptions are lyrical and lingering.”—Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

“David Joy’s novel brought me to my knees. Exquisitely written and heart-wrenching, it reminded me of Faulkner in its dark depiction of family loyalty — that “old fierce pull of blood.” . . . Joy’s descriptions are lyrical and lingering. . . . In the end, the line that holds Joy’s characters may be fraught and frayed, but its pull is fierce.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Joy has proved adept with southern noir in his first two novels, and he nails it again here, in the actions of characters who act as they must, for the sake of family and friendship, given their nature. This is fiction as beautiful and compelling as it is searing.”—
Booklist (starred review)
 
"Poverty, class, violence, addiction, isolation: No one writes about the issues facing rural America as clearly, as fairly, or as well as David Joy. 
The Line That Held Us plumbs the depths of friendship and family, uncovering truths that are stamped on the page with blistering realism."—Wiley Cash, author of The Last Ballad

Praise for
The Weight of This World 

“Bleakly beautiful. . . [a] gorgeously written but pitiless novel about a region blessed by nature but reduced to desolation and despair.”—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
 
“Darkly stunning Appalachian noir.”—
Huffington Post
 
“Scenes unfold at a furious pace, yet contain such rich description that readers will do well to read slowly, savoring Joy's prose. . . .  Joy's work perfectly aligns with the author's self-described ‘Appalachian noir’ genre, as a sticky film of desperation and tragedy cloaks everything his characters touch. April, Aiden and Thad are hopelessly conflicted, dripping with history and heartache, yet they cling to unique dreams about what life could look like if they carried a bit less weight of the world upon their shoulders.”—Associated Press

About the Author

David Joy is the author of The Weight of This World and Where All Light Tends to Go, an Edgar finalist for Best First Novel. His stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in a number of publications, and he is the author of the memoir Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey. Joy lives in Sylva, North Carolina.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ G.P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition (August 14, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0399574220
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0399574221
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.26 x 0.96 x 9.32 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 640 ratings

About the author

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David Joy
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David Joy is the author of the Edgar nominated novel Where All Light Tends to Go (Putnam, 2015), as well as the novels The Weight Of This World (Putnam, 2017), The Line That Held Us (Putnam, 2018), and When These Mountains Burn (Putnam, 2020). His memoir, Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey (Bright Mountain Books, 2011), was a finalist for the Reed Environmental Writing Award and the Ragan Old North State Award for Creative Nonfiction. His latest stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Garden & Gun, and The Bitter Southerner. He is the recipient of an artist fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council. His work is represented by Julia Kenny of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency. He lives in Jackson County, North Carolina.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
640 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the narrative gripping and suspenseful. They praise the writing quality as amazing, gorgeous, and talented. The book captures the essence of the region and its people through an intoxicating blend of beauty and pain. Readers appreciate the well-developed characters and accurate depiction of the people's habits and landscape. Overall, they describe the book as a work of art that accurately portrays the people and their surroundings.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

25 customers mention "Narrative quality"19 positive6 negative

Customers find the narrative compelling and gripping. They describe it as a suspenseful thriller set in Appalachia that reads like a film. The story is described as a good storyteller that writes with a deeper meaning.

"...screenplay while the screenplay, to the extent it is possible, plays out like a novel—with the subtle symbolism, the scathing beauty and naked..." Read more

"...This is a story set in Appalachia following the main characters from an accident to a cover up to revenge and the aftermath...." Read more

"...The principal characters are believable and sympathetic, despite their actions. A twist at the end makes the read that much more absorbing." Read more

"...I did wind up feeling letdown by the ending. The plotting could have used work, and the climax wasn’t terribly effective either from a pulp or..." Read more

24 customers mention "Writing quality"24 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's writing style. They find it evocative, with poetic descriptions and characters that live. The story is well-written and easy to read, with spot-on dialect.

"...but this novel marries an eternal truth with plot that is compelling and characters that are not caricatures, no small feat and evidence that Joy..." Read more

"...Joy writes brilliantly, and I was almost ready to proclaim that he has exceeded Rash early in the book, but I was ultimately let down a bit...." Read more

"...The book does present some interesting questions about the presence of God in mans life and how it impacts Dwayne resulting in a most unusual..." Read more

"I puzzled over LIGHT and more so over WEIGHT recognizing great writing ; Joy talked his readers on tour with poetic description (wow) and characters..." Read more

9 customers mention "Beauty"9 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's natural setting and blending of beauty and pain. They find it gripping and well-portrayed, with subtle symbolism and judgement. The book captures the essence of the region and its people, blending the dark and light of mountain life in an intoxicating blend.

"...possible, plays out like a novel—with the subtle symbolism, the scathing beauty and naked judgement...." Read more

"...David Joy's writing is so beautiful, his world is so full of color and texture that you feel like you're trudging through the woods right alongside..." Read more

"...Reads like a film thriller. It's violent and beautiful. Well done" Read more

"...It's an intoxicating blend of the beauty that surrounds everything and the pain of survival here...." Read more

6 customers mention "Character development"6 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the well-developed characters and accurate depiction of people, their habits, and landscape. They appreciate the raw, gritty, and intense nature of the book.

"...an eternal truth with plot that is compelling and characters that are not caricatures, no small feat and evidence that Joy is someone to watch." Read more

"...I couldn't get enough of the raw, gritty, manly, intensity of this book...." Read more

"albeit superbly written with very well fleshed out characters...." Read more

"...I am from North Carolina and still reside there; Joy accurately depicts the people, their habits, the landscape and spot on dialect...." Read more

Stark Imagery and Taut Prose, Watch David Joy
5 out of 5 stars
Stark Imagery and Taut Prose, Watch David Joy
If you are writing a screenplay, or writing a novel that you want metamorphosed into a screenplay without undue consternation on the part of the screenplay writer, I imagine that issues of plot pacing, dialog and symbolism take greater, or at least qualitatively different, importance than for a garden variety novel. Or maybe not. Take the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men: devastatingly brutal and true to the eternal bleakness of McCarthy’s prose, and yet the novel does not read like a screenplay while the screenplay, to the extent it is possible, plays out like a novel—with the subtle symbolism, the scathing beauty and naked judgement. The book and the movie are different stories.Is David Joy’s novel (out this month), The Line That Held Us, written for the screen? His website suggests that he or at least those in charge of managing his online presence and/or promoting his work are certainly open to discussing the possibility. This sounds snarking but is not meant to be: I saw Michael Crichton interviewed at the LA Festival of books in the early-mid 2000’s and when asked about why he thought so many of his books were made into successful movies, he deadpanned: “I just figured out that I was good at writing commercially appealing material.”Joy’s third novel is set in rural North Carolina amongst folks who might call themselves—if/when whites deploy the pejorative as a badge of honor—rednecks. Family and church and hunting and chaw and pickups and all that. Joy lives there and thus has some first hand knowledge of remote Appalachian communities and feels granted (is granted, I guess) license to wax. I haven’t read anything else he’s written and so don’t know if this is familiar ground. The pictures on his website seem designed to portray Joy as one of the characters in his book. There’s even a picture of him with no shoes on. A truck. A tractor. Tattoos. A—not hipster—beard.The website’s trying to hard to sell the bona fides of a writer whose prose sells itself, as literature and compelling narrative fiction and, why the hell not, screenplay fodder. Joy knows what Busch heavy is and uses the term without f@#king explaining it. He knows that when you crack a beer and take a quick swig there’s foam on your hand you have to shake off. He knows and relates with simple matter-of-factness—again, not explaining—that when you drop in a plug of Kodiak, some sticks to your fingers. There are some lines in this book so lean that could be lifted right from McCarthy, like, “early morning blushed a stand of poplar yellow with fall,” or “a hard frost bit the beautiful that spring,” or describing a flush of birds from a field as a “rising bruise.” I would have liked more of this throughout, but this novel marries an eternal truth with plot that is compelling and characters that are not caricatures, no small feat and evidence that Joy is someone to watch.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2018
    If you are writing a screenplay, or writing a novel that you want metamorphosed into a screenplay without undue consternation on the part of the screenplay writer, I imagine that issues of plot pacing, dialog and symbolism take greater, or at least qualitatively different, importance than for a garden variety novel. Or maybe not. Take the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men: devastatingly brutal and true to the eternal bleakness of McCarthy’s prose, and yet the novel does not read like a screenplay while the screenplay, to the extent it is possible, plays out like a novel—with the subtle symbolism, the scathing beauty and naked judgement. The book and the movie are different stories.

    Is David Joy’s novel (out this month), The Line That Held Us, written for the screen? His website suggests that he or at least those in charge of managing his online presence and/or promoting his work are certainly open to discussing the possibility. This sounds snarking but is not meant to be: I saw Michael Crichton interviewed at the LA Festival of books in the early-mid 2000’s and when asked about why he thought so many of his books were made into successful movies, he deadpanned: “I just figured out that I was good at writing commercially appealing material.”

    Joy’s third novel is set in rural North Carolina amongst folks who might call themselves—if/when whites deploy the pejorative as a badge of honor—rednecks. Family and church and hunting and chaw and pickups and all that. Joy lives there and thus has some first hand knowledge of remote Appalachian communities and feels granted (is granted, I guess) license to wax. I haven’t read anything else he’s written and so don’t know if this is familiar ground. The pictures on his website seem designed to portray Joy as one of the characters in his book. There’s even a picture of him with no shoes on. A truck. A tractor. Tattoos. A—not hipster—beard.

    The website’s trying to hard to sell the bona fides of a writer whose prose sells itself, as literature and compelling narrative fiction and, why the hell not, screenplay fodder. Joy knows what Busch heavy is and uses the term without f@#king explaining it. He knows that when you crack a beer and take a quick swig there’s foam on your hand you have to shake off. He knows and relates with simple matter-of-factness—again, not explaining—that when you drop in a plug of Kodiak, some sticks to your fingers. There are some lines in this book so lean that could be lifted right from McCarthy, like, “early morning blushed a stand of poplar yellow with fall,” or “a hard frost bit the beautiful that spring,” or describing a flush of birds from a field as a “rising bruise.” I would have liked more of this throughout, but this novel marries an eternal truth with plot that is compelling and characters that are not caricatures, no small feat and evidence that Joy is someone to watch.
    Customer image
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Stark Imagery and Taut Prose, Watch David Joy

    Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2018
    If you are writing a screenplay, or writing a novel that you want metamorphosed into a screenplay without undue consternation on the part of the screenplay writer, I imagine that issues of plot pacing, dialog and symbolism take greater, or at least qualitatively different, importance than for a garden variety novel. Or maybe not. Take the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men: devastatingly brutal and true to the eternal bleakness of McCarthy’s prose, and yet the novel does not read like a screenplay while the screenplay, to the extent it is possible, plays out like a novel—with the subtle symbolism, the scathing beauty and naked judgement. The book and the movie are different stories.

    Is David Joy’s novel (out this month), The Line That Held Us, written for the screen? His website suggests that he or at least those in charge of managing his online presence and/or promoting his work are certainly open to discussing the possibility. This sounds snarking but is not meant to be: I saw Michael Crichton interviewed at the LA Festival of books in the early-mid 2000’s and when asked about why he thought so many of his books were made into successful movies, he deadpanned: “I just figured out that I was good at writing commercially appealing material.”

    Joy’s third novel is set in rural North Carolina amongst folks who might call themselves—if/when whites deploy the pejorative as a badge of honor—rednecks. Family and church and hunting and chaw and pickups and all that. Joy lives there and thus has some first hand knowledge of remote Appalachian communities and feels granted (is granted, I guess) license to wax. I haven’t read anything else he’s written and so don’t know if this is familiar ground. The pictures on his website seem designed to portray Joy as one of the characters in his book. There’s even a picture of him with no shoes on. A truck. A tractor. Tattoos. A—not hipster—beard.

    The website’s trying to hard to sell the bona fides of a writer whose prose sells itself, as literature and compelling narrative fiction and, why the hell not, screenplay fodder. Joy knows what Busch heavy is and uses the term without f@#king explaining it. He knows that when you crack a beer and take a quick swig there’s foam on your hand you have to shake off. He knows and relates with simple matter-of-factness—again, not explaining—that when you drop in a plug of Kodiak, some sticks to your fingers. There are some lines in this book so lean that could be lifted right from McCarthy, like, “early morning blushed a stand of poplar yellow with fall,” or “a hard frost bit the beautiful that spring,” or describing a flush of birds from a field as a “rising bruise.” I would have liked more of this throughout, but this novel marries an eternal truth with plot that is compelling and characters that are not caricatures, no small feat and evidence that Joy is someone to watch.
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    10 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2019
    Like most books, The Line That Held Us is a book about choices. The choice that Darl makes to hunt on private land while the owner is out of town. The choice he makes to shoot at what he thinks is a feral hog. The choice he makes to pull his best friend Calvin into things when he discovers that it was a person, not a hog, he shot. The choices that man’s brother, Dwayne, makes in reaction to his brother’s killing.

    David Joy writes in Ron Rash’s territory—The Line That Held Us is set in Jackson County, North Carolina; Rash is a professor at a school in Jackson County—so the comparison is inevitable. Joy writes brilliantly, and I was almost ready to proclaim that he has exceeded Rash early in the book, but I was ultimately let down a bit.

    The Line That Held Us is about the grisly consequences of a killing. It is set up in the mountains of North Carolina, where once you get past the second homes and the college kids everybody has known everybody else all their life. But there is a thick line between the likes of Darl and Calvin and the likes of Dwayne Brewer.

    That line is a key theme. Dwayne is on one side of the line. And Calvin is on the other.

    I have my issues with Dwayne as a villain and an antagonist, ultimately, but he gets one heck of a defining moment, early on:

    “‘How old are you, boy?’
    He looked at Dwayne funny. ‘Sixteen,’ he said.
    Dwayne scrubbed at the back of his head with his knuckles, squinted his eyes like he was weighing a tremendous decision. ‘That’s old enough,’ he said. He pulled a 1911 pistol from the back of his waistline and aimed it square at the boy’s forehead.”

    The Line That Held Us is a book right exactly in my wheelhouse. The story even crosses a lot of my old stomping grounds. And, man, Joy can really write. I did wind up feeling letdown by the ending. The plotting could have used work, and the climax wasn’t terribly effective either from a pulp or from a literary perspective.

    That hardly detracts from the book though (see my numerical rating below), and I need to pick up another of Joy’s books sooner rather than later.
    5 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2018
    And for the third consecutive time David Joy does not disappoint. His writing gets describes as Appalachian Noir. He truly captures the ways of life in rural poverty stricken Appalachia. Where living off the land is quite often the only way to survive. Live to hunt and hunt to be able to live.
    Joy has a way of writing so descriptive to the area this book takes place in. I live in this section of the southern appalachias and his description of the woods, the roads even the family names and the stories that go along with it are so spot on that one would think he had lived it for decades instead of his young 30s.

    With that being said, The Line That Held Us is by far an easy read. It is rough, raw, brutally morbid and quite often down right haunting. His descriptions of mortality is just as in depth as his descriptions of the woods and the trails that take you there. There is nothing left to the imagination and the grotesque images come to life like no other author can bring.

    Even through all the grit and the rough I could not put the book down and in some sections could not turn the page fast enough to see what happened next. And at the end of the last page it left me with images of all the characters and the events surrounding them and they will remain with me for some time.

    The Line That Held Us is in no way a typical Southern tale that somebody just came up with. As painfully horrific and raw as it is, it truthfully shows the love between two brothers, the love between two best friends, the love between a man and the love of his life, the willingness to give their own life so the other may live, and that line that held them all together.

    Thank you David Joy for yet another great work.
    14 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • ABS
    5.0 out of 5 stars My second of David Joys books and as good
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2023
    I love the writing of David Joy, the descriptions, the pacing, the switch between characters to give that 3D feeling to the story.

    I don’t discuss stories in reviews I just make recommendations. I say read this.
  • Dwayne McIntosh
    5.0 out of 5 stars Lean and mean
    Reviewed in Canada on March 16, 2020
    Some people do what they have to get by and then sometimes something goes wrong. Then it becomes secrets, grief, revenge and staying alive.
    Great characterizations, and pacing. Tremendous story. If you haven't read David Joy do so, you won't be disappointed.
  • Chris 07-21
    4.0 out of 5 stars Sympathy
    Reviewed in Canada on February 13, 2021
    Menace: that's what I thought while reading "The Line That Held Us."

    And having finished the book, I think I could say that it was subversive and unpredictable. I thought "TLTHU" would be about Darl and Dwayne, but it wasn't.
  • W. A. Burt
    5.0 out of 5 stars Smouldering revenge saga.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 10, 2020
    A much slower pace than The Weight Of This World but possesses the same unrelenting pulse of aggression and hostility.
    In hindsight this is such a simple story but Joy crafts an atmospheric tale with such skill and gravitas it becomes a complex paradox.
  • Kurt Brian Isaksen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Southern noir
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 15, 2020
    If you like Woodrell this is for you