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  Praise for Holding On To Nothing

  Holding On To Nothing is a resonant song of the South, all whiskey, bluegrass, Dolly Parton, tobacco fields, and women who know better but still fall for the lowdown men whom they know will disappoint them. Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne writes with extraordinary love and compassion of the lives of her flawed characters; she shines a clear, calm light on their tragedies, their joys, and their hard-won redemptions.

  —Lauren Groff, Florida and Fates and Furies

  With her immense empathy for her characters, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne refuses to give the reader a simple, and stereotypical, tale of Appalachian dysfunction. Instead, we get a story of a seemingly star-crossed couple striving to create a better life in the most trying of circumstances. Holding On To Nothing is a gem.

  —Ron Rash, Serena and The Risen

  With unflinching candor imbued with love and understanding, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne’s evocative debut novel explores the meaning of family and the choices people make when the world denies them good options. A compassionate but unsentimental tale of love, loss, and hardship in modern-day Appalachia.

  —Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light

  Forget Hillbilly Elegy and read this gorgeous novel instead. Holding On To Nothing is an in-depth portrayal of contemporary young people caught in a life they cannot control or get out of…. Every detail is exactly right, from Jeptha’s old mandolin and his beloved mutt, Crystal Gayle, to Lucy’s job at Walmart where “the tidbits of other people’s shitty lives floating past her scanner kept her from breaking down over her own.” Contemporary themes of work and no work, drinking, sex, guns, music, community, and no future—along with in-depth character development and a hard-driving plot—make this a book you literally cannot put down.

  —Lee Smith, Dimestore and The Last Girls

  Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne’s debut novel sings and burns in equal measure. Holding On To Nothing is a gripping story of love and place, of the small choices and large passions that determine our lives, of the gorgeous hope that tomorrow will bring something solid and sturdy, something lucky and true.

  —Bret Anthony Johnston, Remember Me Like This and Corpus Christi

  Following in the literary footsteps of Silas House’s debut novel Clay’s Quilt, Holding On To Nothing is a tragically beautiful tale of love, loss, music, and blue-collar mountain life. Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne is a fresh contemporary Appalachian voice that I hope to hear from again and again.

  —Amy Greene, Bloodroot and Long Man

  Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne writes with a chafe and charm that makes you give a damn about these flawed characters, Lucy and Jeptha, makes you root for them when what little they have is at risk. This novel has all the makings of a true ballad—heartache and dead ends, booze and bad decisions, double-crossing relatives, a hand-me-down mandolin, and a loyal dog named Crystal Gayle. It also has a deep humming heart that knows sorrow. Like Lucy’s beloved Dolly Parton, Holding On To Nothing is not just country, it’s mountain. Shelburne is a literary force to be reckoned with.

  —Susan Bernhard, Winter Loon

  In this gritty debut, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne deftly captures the blue-collar ache and darkly comic sensibility of what it means to exist in a world of disappointment and generational trauma, where one is both cussed and cursed. It’s impossible to turn away as these hardscrabble characters embark on a long shot at love despite voices real and imagined that shout in dissent. A stunning debut by a fierce new voice in southern fiction.

  —Kelly J. Ford, Cottonmouths

  The shotgun wedding of ne’er-do-well Jeptha Taylor and girl-of-his-dreams Lucy Kilgore has tragic consequences in Holding On To Nothing, a novel whose dark humor goes down as smoothly as sweet tea in July. Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne’s complex, moving portrait of Jeptha—universally dismissed as a loser in his small town in Tennessee, but who, in Shelburne’s hands, is a wounded, sensitive soul who was never taught how to be the good man he longs to be—resonates long after the final chapter. Told in prose as clear and sweet as Jeptha Taylor’s mandolin, Holding On To Nothing marks the debut of an important new author of southern fiction.

  —Lisa Borders, The Fifty-First State and Cloud Cuckoo Land

  Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne writes with an unprecedented lyricism that is both highly literary and charmingly accessible. From the opening moments of this page-burner, the reader can’t help but surrender to the titanic love affair that is Jeptha and Lucy. The storytelling is so masterful and enchanting that no matter what happens, you know you’re safe with Shelburne at the helm.

  —Jennie Wood, A Boy Like Me and Flutter

  Holding On To Nothing is a smart, wry novel filled with bourbon, bluegrass, grit, and heart.

  —Patricia Park, author of Re Jane

  Holding On to Nothing is a novel of big skies and limited choices, of sweet bluegrass in a sticky hometown bar, of tobacco and guns, danger and desire. Shelburne shoots straight, never allows us to turn our heads. And even non-praying folk will pray for the desperate mismatch of Lucy and Jeptha and their lonely, shivering hearts. Shelburne has done the small-town novel a wondrous turn.

  —Michelle Hoover, The Quickening

  HOLDING ON TO NOTHING

  HOLDING ON TO NOTHING

  a novel

  ELIZABETH CHILES SHELBURNE

  BLAIR

  Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design by Laura Williams

  Interior design by April Leidig

  Blair is an imprint of Carolina Wren Press.

  The mission of Blair/Carolina Wren Press is to seek out, nurture, and promote literary work by new and underrepresented writers.

  This book was supported by the Durham Arts Council’s Annual Arts Fund and the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner. This novel is a work of fiction. As in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience; however, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Shelburne, Elizabeth Chiles, author.

  Title: Holding on to nothing / by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne.

  Description: Durham : Blair / Carolina Wren Press, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019020643 (print) | LCCN 2019021951 (ebook) | ISBN 9781949467208 (eBook) | ISBN 9781949467086 (hardback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Working class families—Tennessee—Fiction. | Country life—Tennessee—Fiction. | Domestic fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3619.H452265 (ebook) | LCC PS3619.H452265 H65 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020643

  “Holding On To Nothing”

  Words and Music by Jerry Chesnut

  Copyright (c) 1968 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

  Copyright Renewed

  All Rights Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219

  International Copyright Secured, All Rights Reserved

  Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

  “Little Sparrow”

  Words and Music by Dolly Parton

  Copyright (c) 2000 Velvet Apple Music

  All Rig
hts Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219

  International Copyright Secured, All Rights Reserved

  Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

  “Holding On To Nothing,” Jerry Chesnut

  © Copyright 1968, Renewed 1996. Jerry Chesnut Music, LLC/BMI (admin. By ClearBox Rights). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  “DOWN IN THE VALLEY”

  Words and Music by KENNY HENSLEY, TYLER WILLIAMS, JONATHAN RUSSELL, JOSIAH JOHNSON, CHRIS ZASCHE and CHARITY ROSE THIELEN

  © 2015 BUDDIES AND SNACKS (ASCAP) and SNACKS AND BUDDIES (BMI) All Rights on Behalf of BUDDIES AND SNACKS Administered by WB MUSIC CORP.

  All Rights on Behalf of SNACKS AND BUDDIES Administered by WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP.

  All Rights Reserved

  Used By Permission of ALFRED MUSIC

  To Tennessee:

  my heart, my home, forever

  We’re holding on with nothing left to hold on to

  I’m so tired of holding on to nothing

  the years have shown no kindness for the hard times we’ve been through

  We’ve squeezed the life from every dream and still go right on bluffing

  with really nothing left to hold on to

  —“Holding On To Nothing,” performed by

  Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner

  I know there’s California, Oklahoma

  And all of the places I ain’t ever been to but

  Down in the valley with

  The whiskey rivers

  These are the places you will find me hidin’

  These are the places I will always go

  These are the places I will always go

  —“Down in the Valley,” performed by

  The Head and the Heart

  HOLDING ON TO NOTHING

  PART ONE

  1

  JEPTHA TAYLOR HAD BEEN in love with Lucy Kilgore since he was sixteen and her smile was the reason why. She had a smile that made people feel safe. Jeptha, particularly. He wasn’t sure why exactly—he just knew a warm, contented feeling stole over him that struck him as exactly the kind of silent bliss a newborn baby feels when his mama feeds him. But when Jeptha pulled his Camaro, dark and shiny as a pond at midnight, into the parking lot behind Judy’s Bar on a hot Friday night in June, he had no idea that Lucy’s smile would be for him tonight, that it would spark through him and spread to her like a hay blaze—fiery, fast, and destructive.

  No, as far as Jeptha was concerned, tonight was only about bluegrass and ass, if he could get it. It was his first time at Judy’s Bar, and he felt a bit disloyal for being there. The bar had been open for four months and—being run by a Yankee—had been in disfavor for all those months with the local drinkers. Except for the real drunks, neighbors all, whose loyalty extended only to Jack, Jim, and whatever bar gave them the best shot at driving home shit-faced without getting caught. For those who could afford to be principled in their place of vice, the bar of choice was Avery’s Place, owned by a hometown boy named Avery who had spent ten years fighting the Pentecostals and the Baptists, both Freewill and Southern, for the right to open a bar in what previously had been a dry county. That a Yankee swooped in five years after Avery’s long fight finally ended and made use of the same provisions he had fought so hard to establish was enough for Jeptha, his friends, and the rest of the town to stay well clear of Judy’s Bar. Until, that is, four boys, so far unnamed in the paper even though everyone in town knew who they were, got high behind Avery’s Place one night in early July, lit a small fire in a patch of grass already dried out in the summer’s drought, and ran like hell when it whooshed into a patch of wiring that snaked up the outer wall of the bar. The fire caught hold in the electrical system and sparked its way from wire to wire, finally nesting in a box of receipts that Avery kept under a couple of bottles of 151-proof Everclear, reserved for the worst of the worst drunks. Within minutes, there was only a wall of flame where once there had been a bar, and Avery’s customers ran, taking their principles with them.

  Jeptha, not being a subscriber to the Review, the town paper, or really much of a reader generally, heard about the fire two days later from his friend Cody. Jeptha and Cody were bandmates in a Boy Named Sue, a bluegrass group that played Friday nights at Avery’s—Cody sang and played banjo, with Jeptha on mandolin. After a respectful period of silence, in which they thought of the drunken nights—both good and bad—they had enjoyed at Avery’s, Cody explained that Judy had called him two days after the fire (“Typical Yankee. Didn’t even wait for the damn ashes to stop smoking.”) and offered the band a job playing Friday nights at her place. Cody was principled, yes, but a fool? No. He’d accepted and gone on to call his bandmates. Jeptha was happy to keep the gig, and all too happy to forget any moral stand he’d once had. He’d agreed to be there on Friday.

  And so, Jeptha pulled his mandolin off the passenger seat of his car and made for the front door. He was showered for the first time in two drunken days, and most of the stink had worn off. He wondered if the girl who’d been in his bed last night—Brandy? Brandy Anne? She’d been bendy for sure, that one—would be in the bar and up for another go. Bluegrass and sex wouldn’t be such a bad Friday. He wondered if he’d need to remember her actual name to get her back to his place.

  Occupied as his mind was, he hadn’t absorbed the fact of the full parking lot, so when he opened the door—happy to smell the right scent of beer, sweat, and leather that came flooding out—he was shocked to see the place packed to the rafters. He wasn’t sure he’d ever played in front of so many people. A trickle of fear gnawed at his belly. He elbowed his way through the crowd. He gave a quick nod and half smile to the girl from last night. She laughed and looked down at the table, but not before Jeptha saw a blush creep up her cheeks. He smiled to himself, pretty damn sure she’d be up for it again, assuming he could finesse the fact that she was sitting with a girl he’d slept with a few months back and never called again. He gripped his mandolin case and worked his way into line, feeling content. It had the makings of a good night.

  Jeptha finally caught the eye of the bartender and owner, Judy. She was in her sixties and, rumor was, had moved down to Tennessee to run this bar with a local man she’d met up in Boston. Jeptha was hard pressed to imagine why someone would move to Boston in the first place, and then, having flown the coop, decide to come back and with a Yankee in tow, no less. Still, here they were. Jeptha couldn’t say that Judy appeared happy about it. Her gray hair, which looked to have never seen the inside of a beauty salon, was pulled into a loose bun from which haphazard chunks escaped, and her t-shirt, wet in spots from the ice she dumped into glasses without so much as an attempt at aim, strained over a set of sagging, ponderous boobs.

  She widened her eyes at Jeptha. “Yeah?” she said.

  “Hi. How’re you?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Um, I’ll have a Bud Light, ma’am.” Jeptha shut his mouth. She was clearly a Yankee with no time for formalities.

  “A Bud Light and what?”

  “Just the beer, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call me ma’am.”

  “Okay, ma—” Jeptha cut himself off when her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. “Just a beer, please.”

  “You guys are too damn polite for your own good.” She slid the bottle across the bar and nodded at the stage. “You with the band?”

  “Yes, ma—” Jeptha stopped. “Yes.”

  “If you guys need anything tonight, grab Lucy. She’s helping out with the tables.”

  Jeptha turned to see the Lucy she was pointing at with her chin, and the trickle of fear in his belly grew to a flood. There she was—the wavy blond hair tickling her waist where her shirt rode up from bending over to take people’s orders; the pert little nose, turned up at the end in a way that was more cute than beautiful; and her cut-off skirt hugging curves he never got to see in church, back when he used to
go. Most of all, there was her smile. Every time he saw it, he fell a little bit more in love.

  Jeptha knew Lucy’s smile didn’t mean anything when it was turned to him—birth had given her a nice one and she was polite enough to use it often, but Jeptha had never been able to help the feeling he got the few times she flashed it his way. Even though her smile made others feel safe, she rarely looked as if she felt that way. She instead sported a hunted look, as wary as a deer stopping to nose through a leaf pile for acorns in the fall, the kind of deer that looked so nervous, so ready to bolt, that Jeptha could never bring himself to even sight his rifle on it. Every time, a few seconds after warmth flowed through him at the sight of her smile, he’d see that wariness on her face and realize that he may as well have been standing in the woods without a gun, for all the chance he had of getting her. Especially now. He’d heard from his sister that Lucy was leaving town, moving to Knoxville to work and go to school. At least he wouldn’t have to see her anymore, though his stomach bottomed out at the thought.

  Jeptha grabbed his beer off the counter for a much-needed sip of courage. Despite the pulsing needs of the crowd, he could feel Judy’s eyes still on him. Her lips flickered. It looked like her last real smile had occurred sometime in the 1970s, and yet here were her lips, the edges moving up subtly toward her eyes. Jeptha mumbled thanks and walked toward the stage, uncomfortably aware of being watched. He kept his head down, trying to avoid making eye contact with Lucy. If he looked at her, the fear he was feeling would travel out to his hands and make them as useful as an arthritic bird dog.

  “Y’all ready?” Cody asked, as Jeptha stepped up on the stage and wedged his beer between two amps.

  Cody nodded once and then tapped his foot—one and a two and a here we go—and launched into a riff on his banjo, which Jeptha and the fiddler and the drummer raced to catch up with. His fingers were stiff and stumbling. His stage fright, which usually decreased as he played, grew into an untamable creature, fed by the fear of playing poorly in front of Lucy. He played like he was eight years old, holding the mandolin for the first time—his fingers glancing off the strings, missing his intros and staring into the crowd at Lucy during what was supposed to be a solo. It was the kind of pitiful performance that makes a pick-up band think they ought to start practicing. The crowd had quieted with the first bars of the song but gradually ratcheted up until the conversations nearly drowned out the band completely. Jeptha was grateful, hoping the noise would keep Lucy from hearing how bad they were.