The Holdouts

Some Girls Grow Up With Barbie Dolls And E-Z Bake Ovens But Not Martha. She Has Scorpion Tail Beelzebub And The Seven Battles Of The Apocalypse To Deal With In Addition To A Mother Who Reads Nightly From Fox’S Book Of Martyrs. Martha Lives In Working Class Arkansas Of The Late Sixties And Early Seventies. Her Father Is A Proud And Brutal Man Who Can’T Always Get Enough Work To Keep Pinto Beans On The Table. Her Mother Pixie In The Most Creative Moment Of Her Life Slips Into Her Wedding Dress Marches To The Local Store-Front Fundamentalist Church And Marries Jesus. The Only Re-Deeming Thing About The Church For Martha Is That The Middle Spoon Daughter Is Also Forced To Attend And She’S The Tough-Est Outlaw Girl In Town. Martha Finds Temporary Respite Through Her Friendship With Spoon And Her Strong Independent Grandmother. Girlfriends However Get Boyfriends And Grandmothers Get Old But The Holdouts Survive. An Adult Novel Told In A Child’S Voice Readers Will Increasingly Identify With Martha In Her Search For Self. The Story Resonates With The Universal Struggle Of Growing Up And Finding A Place In The World.