Fiction. A retelling of the old folk ballad, starring a small liberal arts college in the early seventies. I really dug this clever book, intended for lit geeks much like myself. The heroin is so vibrantly a literature major that I want to alternately hug her and smack her. My one complaint is structural -- this is the sort of book which accumulates 400 pages of weird happenings and saves up the explanation for the last 30 pages, ensuring that you will miss
details and some of the deeper emotional resonances of moments that the narrator didn't entirely understand. To be fair it is a retelling, but I don't know how reasonable it is to expect people to know the bones of this story (I didn't). Definitely worthwhile, though, and I'll be rereading to catch those very moments I missed.