Jewelweed (Rhodes)

Book Reviews
I liked Driftless, but his emotionally rich new novel, Jewelweed, a sequel of sorts, is even better. The novel emits frequent solar flares of surprise and wonder.
Cleveland Plain Dealer


[A] deeply moving meditation on the resonance of each individual life on a small Wisconsin town.
Wisconsin State Journal


Jewelweed is a novel of forgiveness, a generous ode to the spirit’s indefatigable longing for love.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


There’s a benevolent sort of rural American magical realism in Rhodes’s latest ensemble novel, set in the Driftless region of southeast Wisconsin, where recently paroled Blake Bookchester returns from prison after serving over 10 years for drug trafficking. In the oddly isolated town of Words, Wis., Blake haltingly reintegrates himself into a vividly real landscape.... Rhodes sometimes bear[s] down too hard to make the point that actions and words of this size and simplicity have profound redemptive qualities.
Publishers Weekly


The novel is filled with vibrant, skillfully drawn characters whose lives will surprise readers.... Rhodes also has important things to say about humble, hardworking Americans at odds with contemporary American culture, which he finds predatory, corporate, and soulless. Verdict: An impressive and emotionally gratifying novel. —Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Library Journal


[A] rhapsodic, many-faceted novel of profound dilemmas, survival, and gratitude.... Rhodes portrays his smart, searching, kind characters with extraordinary dimension as each wrestles with what it means to be good and do good.
Booklist