Set in Louisiana during the Depression, The Year of the Sawdust Man is the lyrical story of a headstrong young girl coping with her free-spirited mother's departure. Nissa Bergen comes home from school to find her mother's room cleaned out, and the garden's rosebushes bereft of their purple blossoms. Mama is gone. Wading through small-town gossip as oppressive as the bayou heat, and watching her father's eventual determination to move on with his life -- even beginning to court another woman -- Nissa sees her dream of a reunited family slipping away. Her struggle to come to terms with the new shape her family is taking is both poignant and penetrating, a timeless story of the changing face of love.

 

This book is aimed at children in primary school.

There are 220 pages in this book. This book was published 1998 by Simon & Schuster .

Alexandria LaFaye is best known for her Scott O'Dell Award-winning novel Worth , as well as the IRA Teacher's Choice picture book Walking Home to Rosie Lee and the critically well-received novels The Year of the Sawdust Man (a flying-start debut with Publishers Weekly ), Nissa's Place, The Keening, Water Steps, and Stella Stands Alone. She lives in Greenville, IL.