Zorrie

Zorrie is a short novel about a full life. Not full in the usual way we think of for a character in fiction: travel, romances, adventure, public achievements. Zorrie Underwood's life, covering most of the 20th century, was so tied to the soil of her patch of rural Indiana that a few months spent working in Illinois as a young woman remained an exotic memory for years after. Mostly she worked, hard, and loved, patiently, with her curiosity and appreciation of the world around her burbling along at a low simmer. This little gem will remind readers of Marilynne Robinson and Kent Haruf and (for me especially) of Brad Watson's lovely Miss Jane, as it reminds us of the passions that can grow, and be sustained for decades, in a quiet mind and a laboring body.