Homeland by @b_kingsolver

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. 'You have to marry outside your clan,' she said. 'That's law. All the people we knew were Bird Clan. All the others were gone.'

When Gloria's great-grandmother, Green Leaf, left her home in the Hiwassee Valley of Tennessee, it was with a man on a stolen horse. She was one of the fugitive bands of Cherokee who'd resisted capture long ago.

Decades later, her family takes Great Mam on a road trip home. But the place that holds the scattered bones of her ancestors is no longer the land she remembers.

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[My great-grandmother belonged to the Bird Clan]

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(@FaberBooks, 15 October 2019, 48 pages, ebook, bought from @AmazonKindle)

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Kingsolver has become one of my favourite writers over the past 18 months or so and I'm working my way through her back catalogue. This is a great novella. I might check out other books in the Faber Stories series. So much happens in such a short space of time, enough to fill a full-length novel. Kingsolver explores the idea of inheritance and immigration here, using sparse prose and well-fleshed out characters. I didn't want this to end.