Break the Heart of Me

Confirming the promise of her auspicious debut novel, Many Things Have Happened Since He Died , Vaughn touches the heartstrings with this memorable story of a young woman struggling to overcome a life of tragedy and abuse. Living in Nashville with her husband Buddy, Sylvia Grace Mullins dreams of becoming a country music performer, but her marriage and her creativity are crippled by her past. An affair with Jake Harris, an emerging country star, is the catalyst that brings disturbing memories to the surface, recollections of childhood sexual abuse and the deaths of four important people in her life. Vaughn's distinctive prose is addictive. She writes intensely of the inner lives of young Southern women who have grown up in the lower-middle class, evangelical South, reaching deep into a tangle of sex, violence and religion to give voice to characters who have been bred to silence and obedience. Not one detail of her carefully drawn characters is out of place; not one note of her perfectly pitched voice falters. Often harrowing in its honesty, it is ultimately a triumph of love and forgiveness. (Feb.)