A soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship

Calling me Home by Julie Kibler–now in paperback

About this book: Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It’s a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive Isabelle from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow.

Curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle’s guarded past, she agrees, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.

Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son’s irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.

Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family’s housekeeper—in a town where blacks weren’t allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle’s first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.

About the author: Debut novelist Julie Kibler began writing Calling Me Home after learning a bit of family history: as a teen, her grandmother fell in love with a young black man, but their families drove them apart. She also discovered that her father’s hometown had signs at the city limits banishing blacks by sundown. These two facts took root in her imagination, and a compelling work of fiction blossomed. In addition to writing novels, Kibler is a freelance editor, wife to an engineer, mom to teens, and rescuer of dogs. She is currently working on her next novel and blogs regularly at What Women Write. You can visit her online at juliekibler.com.

Genre: Fiction/Women’s Fiction

Judge this book by its cover? Yes, in that it nicely suggests the story’s black-and-white racial tension, but it only barely hints at its beauty and emotional depth.

If this book were a movie, I would rate it: PG-13 for its frank but tasteful appraisal of real-life issues.

You’ll want to buy this book if … You loved Kathryn Stockett’s The Help.

Why did I read this book? For She Reads for review. You can read how others reviewed this book here.

Would I read another by this author? In a heartbeat.

My take: Of all the She Reads picks I’ve read to date, Calling Me Home earns one of my most enthusiastic reviews. It’s a debut novel marvelously paced, sensitively drawn, masterfully executed. The double narratives are crafted with equal care and attention to detail. The prose flows effortlessly, un-selfconsciously, drawing readers to the hope-filled center of a heartrending story.

To quote Wiley Cash, author of A Land More Kind Than Home, “If Calling Me Home were a young woman, her grandmother would be To Kill a Mockingbird, her sister would be The Help, and her cousin would be The Notebook.” Yes. And yet despite its resonance with these other giants, Calling Me Home holds its own in the literary world. It is a story that woulda-coulda-shoulda been terribly sad, yet Kibler manages to imbue it with grace and hope. I read its sweet last lines with tear-blurred vision.

Highly recommended. 

If this sounds familiar, it’s because I originally reviewed Calling Me Home about a year ago. This month it’s out in paperback, and it is such a stellar read (one of my 13 Faves from 2013) that I felt it deserved a little more attention. The good news is, this book is being noticed by book clubs and literary societies all over the place (it’s the January ’14 pick for both the Target Club and Ladies’ Home Journal Book Club), and rumor has it that it might be made into a movie. Fingers crossed!

Now your turn: Which 2013 novel would you love to see made into a movie?