From Publishers Weekly
In Reeves's thoughtful, absorbing debut set in 1920s Alabama, Roscoe leaves his dream job as an electrician with Alabama Power to move with his wife, Marie, and son to the farm where Marie grew up. Roscoe, unhappy and unaccustomed to farm work, decides to tap the state's power lines and bring electricity into the farm. He and the hired hand, Wilson, work for a year bringing Roscoe's dream to fruition, and the farm enjoys increased prosperity with its newly electric thresher. But disaster strikes when a man from the power company is electrocuted; Roscoe and Wilson are arrested. Roscoe is sentenced to 20 years for larceny and manslaughter. During his time in prison, he works in the dairy, the library, and finally with the dogs to track escaped prisoners. Roscoe struggles to come to terms with his life and worries about what happened to Wilson and Marie (who hasn't made contact with him since the arrest). Alternating between the third-person and Roscoe's first-person point of view and shifting the narrative back and forth in timeâfrom Roscoe's childhood, through his life with Marie, to the daily work of the prisonâReeves depicts the layers of loss that Roscoe must confront while inside. In this engrossing, vividly drawn debut, Reeves delivers a dazzlingly authentic portrait of a restless, remorseful mind. Agent: Peter Strauss, Rogers, Coleridge and White Literary Agency. (Mar.)\n
Review
"A striking debut about love and redemption, the heavy burdens of family and guilt and learning how to escape them. Powerfully told and lyrically written, there is not a false note in this book. Reeves is a major new talent." -- Philipp Meyer, author of The Son
"Work Like Any Other is an exceptional novel told in clear, direct, and starkly beautiful language. Virginia Reeves has a gift for bringing to life all the tensions that emerge wherever people, place, and progress collide. I absolutely loved it." -- Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
“How brilliantly Virginia Reeves brings to life her protagonist, Roscoe T Martin, with his hatred of farming, his love of electricity and his long struggle to make amends to himself, his family and his friends. Work Like Any Other is a novel of fierce beauty and hard-won redemption. A wonderful debut.” -- Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy
“This is a consummately well-written, deeply affecting, thought-provoking American historical novel of hard labor, broken dreams, moral dilemmas, violence, racism, and the intricacies of marriage, parenthood, and friendship. Hope is found in reading, compassion, forgiveness, and good, honest work, whatever form it takes. Reeves’ gripping, dynamically plotted, and profound novel will resonate on different frequencies for men and women and spark soul-searching and heated discussion.” ― Booklist, Starred Review
“The world of this exquisite novel – 1920s Alabama – hasn’t let go of me since I finished it. It’s gorgeous, painful, original, and so true in all its details. Reeves writes with incredibly intelligent compassion, and in Roscoe Martin has created an extraordinary man who more than earns his place among the complicated population of the literary South. Thick with dread and beauty, this is a stunning chronicle of a time, a place, and a mind.” -- Fiona McFarlane, author of The Night Guest
"Virginia Reeves' assured and absorbing debut novel is a potent mix of icy honesty and heart-wrenching tenderness; it is certainly a Work Unlike Any Other, in that its humanity and optimism are salvaged from the darkest of places, from prison cells, from mining shafts, from decomposing marriages, and from the unforgiving workings of the land." -- Jim Crace, author of Harvest and Being Dead
“Work Like Any Other is a beautifully accomplished first novel. She draws the reader in with such ease, and plumbs the depths of her characters with such acuteness and care, I was totally won over.” -- James Magnuson, author of The Hounds of Winter
"A riveting debut that oscillates between past and present, between the high price of hope and the betrayals of progress. Both an intimate family saga and a heartbreaking cautionary tale, Work Like Any Other is, above all, a starkly beautiful novel." -- Cristina Garcia, author of Dreaming in Cuban
"Virginia Reeves has built her first novel with the craft and seriousness of purpose of a master carpenter. When the pieces come together, you’re astonished at what a thing of beauty has appeared before your eyes." -- Anthony Giardina, author of Norumbega Park
“Eloquent and acutely self-aware… Prose so lovely that it strains credulity… Elegant.” ― Kirkus
"Thoughtful, absorbing... In this engrossing, vividly drawn debut, Reeves delivers a dazzlingly authentic portrait of a restless, remorseful mind." ― Publishers Weekly
“Work Like Any Other” is addictive when it focuses on Roscoe’s life behind bars, and the perils he suffers, a good man you can’t help but have sympathy for, but one earmarked for suffering. . . . A book worth reading.” ― The Missourian
"A morally complicated ode to Alabama." ― Jackson Free Press
“Author Virginia Reeves has delivered a commanding, dramatic novel of life in 1920s Alabama, inside a family torn apart my anger, resentment, shame, guilt, and desire. This is a deeply gripping portrayal of Americana in the Deep South, replete with racism, violence, and heartbreak. Astonishingly well-written.” ― New York Journal of Books
“[An] inventive, beautiful and deceptively morally complex novel.” ― Nick Mancusi, The Miami Herald
“The novel's great strength is that in showing so much in terms of race, our prison system, forgiveness and labor, it never is heavy-handed. . . . Reeves' nuance for these people and this story is, indeed, quite powerful.” ― Hans Weyandt, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"A slow-burning pleasure... Wonderful... Brutal, beautiful, and, to some significant extent, redemptive." ― Daily Mail (UK)
“[An] engrossing debut novel . . . . A vivid, suspenseful tale of guilt and redemption.” ― Providence Journal
"Beautifully written, this is an unusual and moving debut." ― Sunday Times (UK)
"With lyrical and sparse language, Reeves has created a very striking debut novel. Themes of guilt, compassion, forgiveness and broken dreams will resonate with the reader on so many levels." ― The Mountaineer
About the Author
Virginia Reeves is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Her debut novel, Work Like Any Other, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and Booklist named it to their Top 10 First Novels of 2016. Virginia lives with her husband and daughters in Helena, Montana, where she teaches writing and speech at Helena College. The Behavior of Love is her second novel.
