Rootstock Publishing announces the March 10 release of novelist Edith Forbes’ fifth novel, The Lawnmower Lady, a voice-driven comedy about death, New England culture, small-town entanglements, and a green burial decades before its time.
BookLife by Publishers Weekly chose it as an Editor’s Pick, calling it “poignant without being saccharine and funny without ever losing heart, The Lawnmower Lady reckons with what it means to die—and to live.”
In the novel, Fay Kirkwood is a grumpy offshoot of an old Boston family who raised pigs and fixed lawnmowers on a north country farm. Alive, she was homely, independent, and capable. Dead, she is a sharp-tongued narrator. As news of her death and the unorthodox disposal of her body by her outcast niece spreads through their small town, Fay is launched into a pinball succession of interconnected events. Much to her dismay, she cannot escape witnessing the consequences, which come thick and fast.
“What if the afterlife consists of watching the results of what we did while we were alive?” Forbes mused. “That became the scenario for the story. Fay finds herself stuck, helplessly watching as things she said in the past cause her loved ones to land themselves in the soup.”
Edith Forbes grew up on a family ranch in Wyoming. A graduate of Stanford University, she lived for many years on a small farm in Vermont. Now she lives in town with her cat, dog, chickens, and clarinet. Her previous works of fiction include Alma Rose, Nowle’s Passing, Exit to Reality, and Navigating the Darwin Straits. Learn more at www.edithforbes.com.
The Lawnmower Lady (ISBN:978-1-57869-216-3) is available for the book trade through Ingram and for the public everywhere books are sold or at www.rootstockpublishing.com, with autographed copies available from The Norwich Bookstore.
The book launch celebration with Edith Forbes is March 12 at 7 pm at The Norwich Bookstore, 291 Main St, Norwich, Vermont 05055.
About Rootstock Publishing
Rootstock Publishing (rootstockpublishing.com) is a curated hybrid and traditional publishing house collaborating with authors—the rootstock of creative content. Rootstock’s books have won multiple awards, including, among others, the Eric Hoffer Award, the IPPY, Foreword INDIES, the IBPA Ben Franklin Award, Literary Titan, and IPNE Award. Founded in 2017 in Montpelier, Vermont, Rootstock has published more than eighty books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s books by authors from all over the globe.
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