One Good Mama Bone - Guest Review by Renea Winchester!

Renea Says,

I’ve had my eye on Bren McClain for a number of years. Many authors rush headlong into story with one eye on the keyboard, and another on their personal timeline. McClain knew deep in her bones that good stories take time. 

During this time, of watching, listening, learning from others McClain never rushed this story, not one bit. It is only in this lingering during the creative process from inception to birth that good stories are born and masterful storytellers created. 

One Good Mama Bone is worthy. 

It is worthy of the forward by Mary Alice Monroe, a New York Times best-selling author. It is worthy of acceptance by Story River Books, a leader among Southern Literary Presses. It is worthy of Pat Conroy’s approval.

It is worthy of your time. 

Keep your eye on Bren McClain, she’s the real-deal.

Guest Review Post by:

Renea Winchester,

Award-winning Author of A Hardscrabble Christmas

Farming, Friends & Fried Bologna Sandwiches, Mercer University Press

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One Good Mama Bone
Story River Books
USC Press
February, 2017

About One Good Mama Bone:

When Sarah Creamer takes on the raising of Emerson Bridge, an orphaned boy her husband sired, Sarah’s mother’s words that she hasn’t “one good mama bone,” seemingly rings true. After Sarah’s husband drinks himself to death, Sarah’s already troubled life gets much more difficult.

One Good Mama Bone, set in rural South Carolina, tells of the struggles single mother’s faced in the 50s. With leaner times looming and a bare cupboard, Sara mortgages her future and buys a young steer from a cattleman for Emerson Bridge to enter in the Fat Cattle Show & Sale, a contest with a cash payout that will solve all of their financial problems.

But Luther Dobbins, “the most important cattleman in Anderson County,” will stop at nothing to win the Fat Cattle Show.

The steer Sarah purchased- weaned too young from its Mama- faces certain death at the Creamer farm. “The steers’ bellowing does not let up . . . the utterance was not one she (Sarah) recognized in her head, but in her bones.”

The following morning Sarah awoke to “pin-dropping quiet.” Fearing the steer had died during the night, Sarah rushed outside to find Mama Red, the steer’s mother, cut and bleeding, standing alongside her baby letting him nurse. During the night, Momma red had broken through the barbed-wire fence and ran four miles to reunite with her offspring.

Recognizing this deep bond between Mama Red and the steer, Sarah confides in Mama Red, “I’m six days into having to be his (Emerson’s) mama full on. I don’t know how to be a mama.” 

Mama Bone is a story of hardship, hope, love, loss and the bone of motherhood that reaches deep into the divine.