Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne presents HOLDING ON TO NOTHING: A NOVEL at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store and GrubStreet welcome local debut author ELIZABETH CHILES SHELBURNE for a discussion of her new novel, Holding On To Nothing.

About Holding On To Nothing

Lucy Kilgore has her bags packed for her escape from her rural Tennessee upbringing, but a drunken mistake forever tethers her to the town and one of its least-admired residents, Jeptha Taylor, who becomes the father of her child. Together, these two young people work to form a family, though neither has any idea how to accomplish that, and the odds are against them in a place with little to offer other than bluegrass music, tobacco fields, and a Walmart full of beer and firearms for the hunting season. Their path is harrowing, but Lucy and Jeptha are characters to love, and readers will root for their success in a novel so riveting that no one will want to turn out the light until they know whether this family will survive.

In luminous prose, debut novelist Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne brings us a present-day Appalachian story in the tradition of Lee Smith, Silas House, and Ron Rash, cast without sentiment or cliché, but with a genuine and profound understanding of the place and its people.

Praise for Holding On To Nothing

“Holding On To Nothing is a resonant song of the South, all whiskey, bluegrass, Dolly Parton, tobacco fields, and women who know better but still fall for the lowdown men whom they know will disappoint them. Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne writes with extraordinary love and compassion of the lives of her flawed characters; she shines a clear, calm light on their tragedies, their joys, and their hard-won redemptions.” ―Lauren Groff, author of Florida and Fates and Furies

“Forget Hillbilly Elegy and read this gorgeous novel instead. Every detail is exactly right. Contemporary themes of work and no work, drinking, sex, guns, music, community, and no future―along with in-depth character development and a hard-driving plot―make this a book you literally cannot put down.” ―Lee Smith, author of Dimestore: A Writer’s Life and The Last Girls

“With unflinching candor imbued with love and understanding, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne’s evocative debut novel explores the meaning of family and the choices people make when the world denies them good options. A compassionate but unsentimental tale of love, loss, and hardship in modern-day Appalachia.” ―Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light