Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    One Good Mama Bone: A Novel
    Unavailable
    One Good Mama Bone: A Novel
    Unavailable
    One Good Mama Bone: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    One Good Mama Bone: A Novel

    Written by Bren McClain

    Narrated by Bren McClain

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Read the ebook instead

    About this audiobook

    Set in early 1950s rural South Carolina, One Good Mama Bone chronicles Sarah Creamer’s quest to find her “mama bone,” after she is left to care for a boy who is not her own but instead is the product of an affair between her husband and her best friend and neighbor, a woman she calls “Sister.” When her husband drinks himself to death, Sarah, a dirt-poor homemaker with no family to rely on and the note on the farm long past due, must find a way for her and young Emerson Bridge to survive. But the more daunting obstacle is Sarah’s fear that her mother’s words, seared in her memory since she first heard them at the age of six, were a prophesy, “You ain’t got you one good mama bone in you, girl.”

    When Sarah reads in the local newspaper that a boy won $680 with his Grand Champion steer at the recent 1951 Fat Cattle Show & Sale, she sees this as their financial salvation and finds a way to get Emerson Bridge a steer from a local farmer to compete in the 1952 show. But the young calf is unsettled at Sarah’s farm, crying out in distress and growing louder as the night wears on. Some four miles away, the steer’s mother hears his cries and breaks out of a barbed-wire fence to go in search of him. The next morning Sarah finds the young steer quiet, content, and nursing a large cow. Inspired by the mother cow’s act of love, Sarah names her Mama Red. And so Sarah’s education in motherhood begins with Mama Red as her teacher. But Luther Dobbins, the man who sold Sarah the steer, has his sights set on winning too, and, like Sarah, he is desperate, but not for money. Dobbins is desperate for glory, wanting to regain his lost grand-champion dynasty, and he will stop at nothing to win. Emboldened by her lessons from Mama Red and her budding mama bone, Sarah is committed to victory even after she learns the winning steer’s ultimate fate. Will she stop at nothing, even if it means betraying her teacher?

    McClain’s writing is distinguished by a sophisticated and detailed portrayal of the day-to-day realities of rural poverty and an authentic sense of time and place that marks the best southern fiction. Her characters transcend their archetypes and her animal-as-teacher theme recalls the likes of Water for Elephants and The Art of Racing in the Rain. One Good Mama Bone explores the strengths and limitations of parental love, the healing power of the human-animal bond, and the ethical dilemmas of raising animals for food.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLantern Audio
    Release dateFeb 14, 2017
    ISBN9781945213465

    Related to One Good Mama Bone

    Related audiobooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Top 10 Books

      Jun 16, 2023

      Top 10 Books
      1 min read

    • Article

      Romantic Entanglements Bring Humor And Heartache To Small Town

      Jun 21, 2021

      Katherine Heiny’s novel transplants readers to Boyne City, Michigan, through the keen eyes of the town’s new schoolteacher.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Top 10 Books

      Feb 5, 2021

      Top 10 Books
      1 min read

    • Article

      February’s BOOK CLUB

      Jan 5, 2023

      River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer (£18.99, HB, Headline) It’s Barbados 1834 and slavery has been abolished, but former slaves must work for another six years – for free! In an act of resistance, Rachel heads off through the Caribbean and South A

      4 min read

    • Article

      Best-sellers

      Feb 25, 2018

      Rankings for hard-cover books sold in Southern California, as reported by selected book stores: ___ Fiction 1."The Great Alone," by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's: $28.99) A family discovers it is in peril after the father, a returning Vietnam War POW,

      1 min read

    • Article

      'The Heart's Invisible Furies' Is the Funny, Touching Story of an Irish Everyman

      Sep 1, 2017

      Boyne's new novel follows its protagonist throughout the decades, from birth in 1945 to age 70, and the story encompasses a great deal of history.

      3 min read

    • Article

      March Fiction

      Feb 15, 2022

      Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson (Century, £20) In 2018 the ever-prolific James Patterson got together with Bill Clinton to write the best-selling The President Is Missing: a novel that combined Clinton’s insider knowledge with Patter

      2 min read

    • Article

      J.P. Morgan’s Librarian Hid Her Race. A Novel Imagines The Toll On Her.

      Jun 29, 2021

      “The Personal Librarian,” based on a true story, explores the life of a Black collector who hid her race while amassing rare books for J.P. Morgan.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The 10 Best Novels

      Dec 19, 2016

      The 10 Best Novels
      3 min read

    • Article

      Home Before Dark

      Apr 2, 2020

      Home Before Dark
      1 min read

    • Article

      Memoir

      Nov 5, 2021

      Delia Owens attracted a cult following with her debut novel, Where the Crawdads Sing – but although it was her first work of fiction, she was already a bestselling author as a result of the award-winning memoir that she and her husband had written. O

      1 min read

    • Article

      'The Reformatory' Tells A Story Of Ghosts, Abuse, Racism — And Sibling Love

      Nov 2, 2023

      Tananarive Due's haunting, unflinching novel delves deep into the realities of the Jim Crow South and the very real horrors that took place at Florida reformatory schools in the 1950s.

      3 min read

    • Article

      'Wellness' Is A Perfect Novel For Our Age, Its Profound Sadness Tempered With Humor

      Sep 20, 2023

      Nathan Hill's stunning new novel about the stories we tell about our lives and our loves, and how we sustain relationships throughout time, is both funny and heartbreaking, sometimes on the same page.

      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store’ Weaves A Tale Of Love And Community

      Oct 12, 2023

      James McBride, one of today’s great American novelists, cares about his characters. In a recent episode of “The New Yorker Radio Hour” podcast, the award-winning author professed that he’s not someone who “creates characters, and runs them up a tree,

      2 min read

    • Article

      Searing And Hopeful, ‘Three Flames’ Chronicles Family’s Life

      Jan 28, 2020

      Alan Lightman’s novel “Three Flames” follows the conflicting desires of one Cambodian family as they navigate a changing society.

      1 min read

    • Article

      3 Wonderful Middle-grade Novels For Fall

      Nov 5, 2018

      Intriguing protagonists, lively cultural mixes, and sensitive writing make these books winners.

      3 min read

    • Article

      THE room Reading

      Feb 24, 2021

      THE room Reading
      3 min read

    Reviews for One Good Mama Bone

    4.5/5

    6 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words