Weedeater: An Illustrated Novel by Robert Gipe

Robert Gipe’s novels are unique. Every few pages are graced with one or two of his line drawings with captions that illustrate what is happening. His first, Trampoline, exploded onto the regional literary scene in 2015 and caused ripples throughout the country. It was widely viewed as an authentic window into contemporary Appalachian life. Dawn Jewell, its fifteen-year-old protagonist, moved anxiously between the home of her addict mother and her mamaw, an anti-strip-mining activist deep in the Eastern Kentucky coalfields. Weedeater picks up the story of Dawn Jewell six years later. Now she is a young mother feeling life’s turmoil with a new kind of urgency. “No other work in this century shifted the literary landscape of Appalachia like the publication of Robert Gipe’s novel Trampoline. Now comes its sequel—just as searing, relentless, and gripping. With his cast of misfits, Gipe is redefining and reimagining the American social novel. His language is lightning on the page.”—Erik Ree