The Holdouts

Some girls grow up with Barbie dolls and E-Z Bake ov-ens, but not Martha. She has Scorpion Tail, Beelzebub, and the seven battles of the Apocalypse to deal with in addition to a mother who reads nightly from Fox's Book of Martyrs. Martha lives in working class Arkansas of the late sixties and early seventies. Her father is a proud and brutal man who can't always get enough work to keep pinto beans on the ta-ble. Her mother, Pixie, in the most creative moment of her life, slips into her wedding dress, marches to the local store-front fundamentalist church and marries Jesus. The only re-deeming thing about the church for Martha is that the middle Spoon daughter is also forced to attend, and she's the tough-est outlaw girl in town. Martha finds temporary respite through her friendship with Spoon and her strong, independ-ent grandmother. Girlfriends, however, get boyfriends and grandmothers get old, but the holdouts survive. An adult novel told in a child's voice, readers will increas-ingly identify with Martha in her search for self. The story resonates with the universal struggle of growing up and find-ing a place in the world.