Marva Cope Book Review

 

This is a coming-of-age novel where middle-aged Marva Cope discovers the meaning of forgiveness, friendship, love, the importance of resilience, and being able to develop an acceptance of where she is in life. Author Teddy Jones's superb story-writing skills shine as she invites readers along on Marva's journey of self-discovery. It's a story of transformation, learning how to trust others, and being able to accept help when offered. It's a storyline written with such realism that it will tug at your heartstrings, drawing you into Marva's life spanning several decades. Characters are well-developed and realistically portrayed. Marva Cope is the 4th novel in the Jackson Pond series and can also be read as a stand-alone novel.

The structure arc of the story is a little unusual but Jones makes the transition seamlessly. The story unfolds in 2017 as Marva reconnects with her Aunt Violet in Jackson Pond, a small town in the Texas Panhandle. She is taking on the job of postmistress and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She and her Aunt Violet discover they are kindred spirits as both are independent and live an unconventional life not playing by everyone else's rules. Together they share many sweet moments as they adjust to living together. Then the story backtracks to the 70s and 80s giving the reader the backstory of Marva's difficult teenage years. How losing her brother to a tragic farm accident, her father's unexpected death, an undemonstrative mother, a New Mexico adventure leaving home with rodeo cowboy Cutter to work on a ranch, and an unexpected pregnancy all impact Marva's growing up years into adulthood. When the story shifts back to 2017 and 2018 Marva is learning to appreciate the value of true friends, coming to terms with her difficult past, and is eager to reconnect with her estranged adult daughter and her high school/college dorm friend Stacy.

Jones's no-nonsense style of writing shows compassion and wisdom with moments of gentle humor.  Visual imagery with realistic depictions of the Texas and New Mexico rural small towns and farming/ranching communities immerses the reader in the story as well as attention to landscape details and way of life. Developing relationships keep the reader engaged throughout the story. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Marva's endearing relationship with her dog Bullet. He's a companion like no other. The ending is open-ended as the author does not give all the answers. It is up to the readers to contemplate where Marva's life might go next. I have some thoughts and hope there's a sequel planned.

ALL ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Teddy Jones has been a nurse, nurse practitioner, university professor, college dean, and occasional farmhand. She grew up in a small north Texas town, Iowa Park. She gained college degrees in nursing at Incarnate Word and the University of Texas, a Ph.D. in Education at the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. She held nursing, teaching, and administrative positions in Austin, Denver, and Lubbock and as a family nurse practitioner in Texas and New Mexico. Writing fiction was her “when I know enough and have the time” dream all those years. Now she and her husband live near Friona, in the Texas Panhandle, where her husband farms and she writes full time.

Before devoting her work to fiction, she wrote a monthly column for The Farmer Stockman, a farm magazine. She has co-authored 100 Doses, a book of essays for rural women, and A Stone for Every Journey, a biographical novel. She also is the author of Left Early, Arrived Late, a biography. Her first novel, "Halfwide," was published in 2012. Jackson’s Pond, Texas, her second, was published in October 2013 and was a finalist in contemporary fiction for the Willa Award from Women Writing the West. She received the First Prize Gold Medal in Short Story in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in 2015 for “Clean Getaway,” a story included in, Nowhere Near: Stories, published in 2017. 

Check out Jones's website for more author information and her books. https://tjoneswrites.net/media/