Valerie Nieman

If you're an academic, and looking for something a bit different for your course readings...

Ed Davis writes: "Valerie Nieman's new novel almost makes me wish I were still an English professor so I could teach the book. A mash-up of genre and literary, To the Bones (WVU Press, 2019) has something for every taste in this rollicking ride of a read... If she can please twenty-something college students yearning for a new take on their anti-heroes, plus simultaneously satisfy their professor's penchant for literary fiction, that's quite an accomplishment." The book has elements of horror, mystery, Appalachian folk tale in its DNA. 

"Steeped in sideshow tradition, and addressing issues of race, gender, self-concept, and creative expression, your book is beautifully written." — The Coney Island Museum

 "...Nieman's narrative is appealingly roguish and poignant. But we can also see it as an American parable in poetry, a combination of Huckleberry Finn and Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Birthmark." You ponder race, class, suffering, spirituality, history, and identity as you fall under the Leopard Lady's spell. This book is, as the sideshow banner says, ALIVE." — Jeanne Julian in Main Street Rag, Vol. 24, No. 1, Winter 2019