Lady Chevy
by John Woods
Pegasus
In a forgotten part of Middle America, a defiant act leaves one man dead and one teenage girl faced with a stark decision that could mean losing everything.
Amy Wirkner, a high school senior in Barnesville, Ohio, is a loner, nicknamed “Chevy” for her size. She’s smart, funny, and absolutely determined to escape from her small town in the Ohio Valley, a place poisoned by fracking. She does well in school despite the cruelty of her classmates and has her eyes on a college scholarship, so she can one day become a veterinarian and make something of herself.
But even as she tries to keep her head down and stay out of trouble, trouble seems to find her. Believing toxic water has poisoned her family, Amy one night becomes involved in an act of ecoterrorism against a local fracking company that goes terribly wrong. Her oldest friend Paul, as angry and defiant as she is, has drawn her into this dark world—and now a man is dead as a result. But Amy can’t—won’t—let one night’s mistake stand in the way of her plans.
Touching on important topics as wide-ranging as ethnic hatred, police corruption, environmental decay, and gun violence, Lady Chevy is one girl’s story that highlights the darkest parts of modern America with surprising results.
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Praise for Lady Chevy:
“Woods makes Amy so sympathetic, her life so bleak and her options so limited that she
becomes a paradigm for the entire valley, robbed of its youth and denied its future. She’s
quite a remarkable character. Amy comes from tough stock, a clan of miners whose faces
are bared in the old photos people hang in their homes. Woods writes in the same style
as those photographs, wrapping beauty in shocking misery.”
—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
“An Appalachian Bildungsroman, a moral depiction of amoral characters in a hardscrabble world,
and an all-around compelling story, Lady Chevy is an outstanding literary debut.”
—The Observer
“Using stark imagery and evocative prose, Woods paints an unflinching portrait of small-town brutality
and despair. Fans of Appalachian noir will be well satisfied.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Woods’ accomplished but very dark novel about a town where violence is epidemic is an extended exercise
in a kind of nihilism. It is unsettling and invites long thoughts about the world Amy inhabits.”
—Booklist