Priscilla Speaks is the fourth novel in Kirk Ward Robinson’s absorbing Speaks family saga, set in a rundown small town near the Appalachian Trail. Robinson’s new book also serves as a good entry point into the saga’s narrative flow. As he introduces key characters, he weaves their past conflicts into descriptions of their current relationships and emotions.

Priscilla Speaks is the second daughter of Blaize Speaks, a single woman who received little love from her own mother—and, in turn, has never offered much to her four children. As Robinson writes, Priscilla has not really thought of her mother as Mama but as “an impervious being who came and went and sometimes paused to scold her for something.”

In the Speaks saga, Blaize’s daughters and three sons mostly grow up yearning to escape their cramped trailer home so they can figure out who they are and what they can become in a world they have barely experienced. Their mother, meanwhile, is anchored in the familiarity of her poverty, drug dependency, and despair.

The well-written series is structured, in part, around what happens to the children as they grow up and leave—or return—home. It also focuses on Blaize, who remains rooted in Bilbo, “a town of such despondency and wrecked lives that gray seemed to rain from the clear blue sky.” The three other Speaks volumes are Timewall Speaks, Blaize Speaks, and Ridley Speaks. A fifth book, The Family Speaks, is in the works by Robinson, a Texas native who now lives near a section of the Appalachian Trail, the famous 2,200-mile footpath that cuts through 14 states from Georgia to Maine.

In Priscilla Speaks, Blaize’s youngest child quickly grows into a violent little hellion. Even in first grade, Priscilla knows she doesn’t fit in and has no fear of attacking bigger children—including those who bully her older brother, Timewall (a name Blaize gave him at birth while stoned). Priscilla also is not afraid to lash out at teachers and other adults. At one point in her childhood, her older sister Ridley tells her, “You know, Pris, to know you is to hate you.” Priscilla secretly longs for friends yet has none. She is bored at school, though she is much smarter than her grades suggest. She deliberately earns B’s and C’s so she won’t draw too much attention.

Ironically, Blaize does have one close friend: Jocela, or “Joss.” Even if she has shown little affection for her children, Blaize shares a deep bond with Jocela, whom she met in a girls’ group home. Robinson writes: “The bond they formed went beyond blood to a place of shared dependency, of entrenched loyalty. They were more than friends, more than sisters—they were opposite halves who together formed a formidable whole.” Both are meth addicts, and Blaize considers it her mission to keep Jocela from sinking too deeply into despair.

Despite her indifference to her children, Blaize is deeply upset when her oldest, Tommy, joins the Army. She fears a future where everyone leaves her and she is alone.

One day, when Priscilla is sixteen, she says something critical about “Aunt Joss,” blaming Jocela for the state of Blaize’s children. In anger, Blaize tells her daughter to leave—and does not take the command back.

Priscilla is mostly unprepared to be on her own. But once she starts walking the Appalachian Trail, she meets new people who kindly help her learn to cope and connect. These encounters take her down unexpected new paths that gradually teach her good, hopeful things about life, possibility, who she really is, where she’s come from, and where she is now free to go.

About the Author
Kirk Ward Robinson, a four-time Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, was born and raised in South Texas and has since lived in every continental American time zone. An inveterate hiker and cyclist, he prefers to travel and explore the world under his own power. His wide-ranging career has included roles as a chief operating officer, bookstore manager, stagehand, bicycle mechanic, and executive director of an educational nonprofit in cooperation with the National Park Service.

Robinson has twice been named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books—in 2012 for Life in Continuum, and in 2015 for The Appalachian. He earned five stars from Foreword Clarion Reviews for his novel The Latter Half of Inglorious Years. These days, he maintains a small ancestral farm in the hills of Tennessee.