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THE CURIOUS CALLING OF LEONARD BUSH
By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
Blair
September 2026
On Sale: September 8, 2026
300 pages
ISBN: 195888894X
EAN: 9781958888940
Trade Paperback
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Coming of Age | Fantasy Magical Realism | Women's Fiction Southern
WINNER of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction Young Leonard Bush buries his lost leg and saves his whole East Tennessee town in this winsome and miracle‑making novel. When twelve‑year‑old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, he decides to give his leg a proper burial in the hilltop cemetery of his East Tennessee town. This event somehow sets off a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events—upending the lives of Leonard’s rigidly God‑fearing mother, June; his deeply conflicted father, Emmett; and his best friend, Azalea, and her mother, Rose, who is also the town prostitute. While the local Baptist minister passes judgment on events and promises dire consequences, the people of this small community on the banks of Big Sugar move together toward awakening. Susan Gilmore’s love of storytelling flows naturally from her Tennessee roots. She's the daughter of a revival preacher’s son, brought up on the land and streams that populate this novel that is, as Appalachian novelist Lee Smith says, a "homespun Pilgrim’s Progress."
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