GREEN THROUGH A LEAF

By Josephine L. McKee

Green Through a Leaf: A Novel, is based on the author’s experiences in childhood, following the deaths of her father and brothers, and takes place in Vermont, where she was raised by her poet-mother, who had been friends with Sylvia Plath, and grandparents, a retired diplomat and artist, who also lived in town. An earlier version was shortlisted for the Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, judged by Barbara Kingsolver.

Cover artwork, design, and book design by Josephine L. McKee.
In paperback with card-stock cover.

Publisher: McKee Bird Publishing
Language: English
Paperback
ISBN: 979-8-9875448-0-8
Dimensions: 8.5″ x 5.5″ x 1 3/8″
495 pages
Copyright date: February 06, 2023

Green Through a Leaf: A Novel is available at these fine bookstores:

The Bennington Bookshop / Bennington, Vermont

The Northshire Bookstore / Manchester Center, Vermont

Bartleby’s Books / Wilmington, Vermont

Everyone’s Books / Brattleboro, Vermont

The Bennington College Bookstore / North Bennington, Vermont

Praise for “Green Through a Leaf: A Novel”:

This is one of the most beautiful and curious books I’ve read.  Though it spills out with unstoppable grace, it’s been artfully worked to maintain its momentum, its haunting evocation of characters and place. Perhaps a key is the metaphor of the “borderline,” introduced on the first page and not referred to again though its emanations infuse the text and, in the end, lift it to a visionary unity. Therein lies the educative power of the book.

     Page by page, the metaphor of the borderline, now forgotten but lingering in the reader’s mind, exercises its power. What lay, or lies, beyond the border? What was lost in the losing? What is meant by death, the sudden irrevocable disappearance of a beloved mainstay?

     McKee the artist cannot leave her story chained behind the borderline. The world is not, she senses or believes, split right and left, good and bad, light and dark according to ancient orthodoxies. Instead, there surges into her language, slowly then more intensely, what one could call a healing metaphor of sunlight playing in and on the natural world, leaves, stones, trees, water. That is to say, the growing child is so steeped in esthetically replenishing nature that whenever she becomes aware of its presence, she is lifted back into life and finds her place in landscape where the vast sky stands for the hugeness of her loss. Indeed, her mind is so infused with these experiences that pure thought is spontaneously cross-rooted in her mind with color and sound. A difficult idea to express, this experience of synesthesia, the cross-referencing of sense impressions . . . a  genetic capacity in certain gifted writers (think Virginia Woolf), for whom mere flickers of recorded natural beauty have healing power over the anxious mind: a flare of sunrise color on the face of a grief-struck mother, soul-clarifying daylight on a shadowed wall, dark-feathered crows on a snowfield. 

     In this way, the child grows between remembered shock and fleeting relief, and gradually, step by step, regains her footing in the natural world, an esthetic promise one might even call, without religious overtone, salvationist. As we in our grotesquely malformed militaristic society today face up to the massive reality of PTSD injuries to soldiers and also the war-damaged young of other nations, a book like McKee’s could even become as valuable as, once upon a time, were books of scripture or prayer. 

     But McKee’s is a book of literary not self=help merit. It holds the promise of what I think of as a golden metaphor: language that works to rejoin fragments of a broken world into a work of self-replenishing visionary art.

               Eleanor Munro 

               Author, ORIGINALS: AMERICAN WOMEN ARTISTS, 

               Da Capo Press

               New York, NY

What readers have said about GREEN THROUGH A LEAF:

“I couldn’t put it down all night” . . . “Incredibly powerful” . . . “A great book” . . . “Deeply moving” . . . “Very compelling” . . . “Great characters” . . . “Totally complete, well-rounded characters” . . . “That’s exactly what it was like” . . . “Amazing, the layers of complexity and the connections made” . . . “Thank you for writing about a child’s experience of overwhelming loss” . . . “Much deeper and more than the subject/categories the book falls under, such as ‘loss’ or ‘family'” . . . “Great story” . . . “The cover is gorgeous” . . . “Beautiful cover” . . . “A great read and story” . . . “That point in time, with the diplomat grandfather, poet-mother who went to school with Sylvia Plath, the friends, loved it” …

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GERTRUDE: A NOVEL

By Josephine L. McKee

“Gertie”, the protagonist in the novel Gertrude, lives and works in New York City . . . she’s deeply engaged with her work in interior design, and obsessed with colors. As she works for a variety of people, Gertie leads the reader through her story that’s filled with details, humor, surprises, characters and interesting thought. Gertrude is related to Green Through a Leaf, and they are also separate, stand-alone novels.

Jacket artwork, design, and book design by Josephine L. McKee.
In paperback with card-stock cover.

Publisher: McKee Bird Publishing
Language: English
Paperback
ISBN: 979-8-9875448-1-5
Dimensions: 8.5″ x 5.5″ x 1 1/8″
448 pages
Copyright date: February 06, 2023

Gertrude: A Novel is available at these fine bookstores:

The Bennington Bookshop / Bennington, Vermont

The Northshire Bookstore / Manchester Center, Vermont

Bartleby’s Books / Wilmington, Vermont

Everyone’s Books / Brattleboro, Vermont

The Bennington College Bookstore / North Bennington, Vermont

Please scroll down to order Gertrude from this website. Books are mailed as soon as possible. Delivery times may vary. Price includes shipping within the U.S.

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COLOR IN SEVEN CHAPTERS:

COLOR IN INTERIORS

By Josephine L. McKee

Color in Seven Chapters: Color in Interiors, written from the author’s experience as an interiors colorist and extensively researched, is an exploration of color that is organized with seven individual considerations to convey a deeper understanding of its complex subject. This book is for anyone interested in the subject of color, as well as those interested in color for interior architectural spaces.

Jacket artwork, design, and book design by Josephine L. McKee.
In paperback with card-stock cover and book jacket.

Publisher: McKee Bird Publishing
Language: English
Paperback
ISBN: 979-8-9875448-2-2
Dimensions: 8.5″ x 5.5″ x 7/16″
170 pages
Copyright date: July 17, 2023

On sale at these fine bookstores:

The Northshire Bookstore / Manchester Center, Vermont

Bartleby’s Books / Wilmington, Vermont

Everyone’s Books / Brattleboro, Vermont

The Bennington College Bookstore / North Bennington, Vermont

Please scroll down to order Color in Seven Chapters: Color in Interiors from this website. Books are mailed as soon as possible. Delivery times may vary. Price includes shipping within the U.S.