The Last Blue, Isla Morley
The Last Blue, Isla Morley
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
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The Last Blue

Author: Isla Morley

Narrator: T. Ryder Smith

Unabridged: 11 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/12/2020

Categories: Fiction, Women


Synopsis

A luminous narrative inspired by the fascinating real case of “the Blue People of Kentucky" that probes questions of identity, love, and family.

In 1937, there are recesses in Appalachia no outsiders have ever explored. Two government-sponsored documentarians from Cincinnati, Ohio—a writer and photographer—are dispatched to penetrate this wilderness and record what they find for President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration.

For photographer Clay Havens, the assignment is his last chance to reboot his flagging career. So when he and his journalist partner are warned away from the remote Spooklight Holler outside of town, they set off eagerly in search of a headline story.

What they see will haunt Clay into his old age: Jubilee Buford, a woman whose skin is a shocking and unmistakable shade of blue. From this happenstance meeting between a woman isolated from society and persecuted her whole life, and a man accustomed to keeping himself at lens distance from others, comes a mesmerizing story in which the dark shades of betrayal, prejudice, fear, and guilt, are refracted along with the incandescent hues of passion and courage.

Panning across the rich rural aesthetic of eastern Kentucky, The Last Blue is a captivating love story and an intimate portrait of what it is like to be truly one of a kind.

About Isla Morley

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a British father and fourth-generation South African mother. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband (a minister) and daughter and an assortment of animals. Her debut novel, Come Sunday, was awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction in 2009 and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize. It has been translated into seven languages.


Reviews

The Last Blue has been on my wishlist for some time, and I’m so grateful to have read it. Five full stars! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ The Last Blue is the story of Clay Havens, working as a photographer during the Depression. He travels to Kentucky on special assignment, and there he meets Jubilee Buford, whose......more

Goodreads review by Hannah

It's been a week and I still cannot stop thinking about this book. I was surprised the whole time because I truly have read nothing like it. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I'll just say that if you enjoy cinematic stories that take you on an emotional journey, this book is for you. I li......more

Goodreads review by Annette

Kentucky, 1937. Havens, photographer, and Massey, journalist, among others, are to document the hardship of rural people for President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. Chance is one of many towns in eastern Kentucky equipped for ten times as many people. They got the start due to the hardw......more