Minnow

by James E. McTeer II

Overview

Minnow is an otherworldly story of a small boy who leaves his dying father’s bedside hunting a medicine for a mysterious illness. Sent by his mother to a local druggist in their seaside village, Minnow unexpectedly takes a dark and wondrous journey deep into the ancient Sea Islands, seeking the grave dust of a long-dead hoodoo man to buy him a cure. With only a half-feral dog at his side, Minnow’s odyssey is haunted at every turn by the agents of Sorry George, a witch doctor who once stirred up a fever that killed fifty-two men. Meanwhile, a tempest brews out at sea, threatening to bring untold devastation to the coastal way of life. Minnow is a remarkable debut novel that evokes the fiction of Karen Russell and Lauren Groff—a Lowcountry “Heart of Darkness” about the mysteries of childhood, the sacrifices we make to preserve our families, and the ghosts that linger in the Spanish moss of the South Carolina barrier islands.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938235122
Publisher:	Hub City Press
Publication date:	06/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	389 KB

About the Author

Born and raised in Beaufort, McTeer is a school librarian in Columbia, SC. He is the grandson of the late J. E. McTeer, whose 37 years as High Sheriff of the Low Country (and local witch doctor) served as inspiration for Minnow.

Editorial Reviews

03/09/2015
A young boy’s simple errand is transformed into a magical odyssey in McTeer’s spellbinding debut. Minnow volunteers to go into a backwater South Carolina river town near his family’s Lowcountry home to get much-needed medicine for his father. But the pharmacist doesn’t have what he needs and sends Minnow to a witch doctor who, in turn, sends the young boy on a life-changing journey in which he encounters forbidden woods, fierce animals, and strangers both helpful and frightening—not to mention an otherworldly encounter with a tribe that he’s told is predestined. McTeer, whose story is inspired by his grandfather, a sheriff of the Lowcountry and a local witch doctor, creates a world totally different from anything Minnow has known, but his innocence and forthrightness protect him like a talisman. This is a memorable coming-of-age story brimming with unexpected encounters with man, beast, and nature, and some magic thrown in for good measure. (May)

Publishers Weekly

★ 05/01/2015
In this 2014 South Carolina First Novel Prize winner, the title character's father is dying, and with money the family can hardly spare, young Minnow sets out to buy medicine from a local pharmacist. When he's turned away by the pharmacist and sent to a local hoodoo healer, Dr. Crow, Minnow launches a quest that will take him deep into the mysterious South Carolina low country—the sea islands. Dr. Crow will not help Minnow until he delivers soil from the grave of Sorry George, an infamous practitioner of black magic. Minnow faces great adversity as he searches for the grave, including three terrible events that he is told to look for and face straight on, as indeed he does. With no resources but youth and determination and only a ragged dog for company, Minnow journeys forward, unknowingly traveling farther out onto the islands when a powerful storm comes in from the sea. VERDICT Readers will sink into this novel like sinking into South Carolina pluff mud, feeling the tension like oppressive humidity, and wondering what obstacle the protagonist will face next and what sacrifices he will endure for his family. A compellingly dark debut full of Southern mystery and lore.—Shaunna E. Hunter, Hampden-Sydney Coll. Lib., VA

Library Journal

★ 2015-03-05
A young boy sets out on an almost mythical quest through a vividly imagined American South in this debut novel. Minnow's father is dangerously ill and on the verge of dying, and the boy is sent to the drugstore to fetch a mysterious medicine. The pharmacist doesn't have the medicine, so Minnow must set out on an increasingly strange and dangerous quest through the South Carolina Sea Islands to acquire the price of a cure: grave dust from the resting place of Sorry George, a legendary witch doctor and practitioner of black magic. Minnow's journey weaves through the lush and wild landscape of the islands, a setting described with such obvious fondness and simple clarity that it fills the novel with a solid presence of its own and adds its weight of reality to the story's supernatural elements. As one might expect of a fairy-tale quest, Minnow's travels take him from one striking episode to another. He meets strangers, both good and bad; receives advice, both wise and deceptive; and is beset by dangers that grow ever more epic. Throughout the story he remains a stubbornly noble hero, saved from too much perfection by believable childish innocence and decisiveness. When he comes across the more fantastical elements of the novel—"hoodoo" magic, the hauntings of Sorry George, ghosts and spirits—he accepts them with the same belief and fear that he gives to the more likely horrors of human cruelty and natural disaster, allowing the reader to also experience both the magical and realistic with equal vividness. An evocative novel that brings to life an intensely realized portrait of the South Carolina Lowcountry and sends its appealing young hero on a journey full of the strangeness of childhood and the difficult choices that come with growing up.

Kirkus Reviews