Clover Garden

“Simpson is a master prose stylist, a poet at heart. His sentences are graceful and well-tuned—thoroughly worked on to get that “worked on” feeling out—and laced with continual surprises to save them from predictability. . . . Thomas Wolfe would approve.”—PineStraw Magazine

“This memoir really jump[s] off the page. . . . It is packed full of the characters and places that make North Carolina an interesting place to call home. Simpson is one of those authors who manages to grab the reader’s attention. . . . [B]road appeal to North Carolina residents as well as casual readers of non-fiction and memoirs.”—North Carolina Libraries

“Bland Simpson’s new book and the lovely photos by his wife, Ann Cary Simpson, will give its readers a[n] . . . opportunity to experience life in Clover Garden.”—DG Martin, WCHL ChapelBoro

“[B]eautiful, reflective, and goofily funny. . . . [featuring] the stark beauty of [Ann Simpson’s] black-and-white images of nature [and] the noble loneliness she captures of old homes, solitary flowers, and curious animals.”—North Carolina Literary Review

“This lush praise song of the North Carolina Piedmont is written in prose that truly sings. Through portraits of people, places, and incidents historic and recent, Clover Garden documents everyday life on the land—gardening, fishing, fixing fences, timbering, training up dogs, sharing beers in a biker bar, and caring for neighbors. At a time when sprawling development is moving ever faster in North Carolina, this bright narrative beckons us to consider what we are losing and how simple and glorious the pleasures of this verdant landscape we must protect.”—Georgann Eubanks, author of Saving the Wild South

“Clover Garden is a wonderful read. Starry nights and country characters, pool halls and draft horse–pulling contests, even a conga line in a dance hall that’s afire: This is one of Bland Simpson’s best.”—Jan DeBlieu, author of Year of the Comets