Friday Freebie: Goliath by Susan Woodring

Congratulations to Jennifer Gibbons, winner of last week's Friday Freebie, The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty.

This week's book giveaway is Goliath by Susan Woodring, a novel Michael Parker (The Watery Part of the World) calls a "careful, contemplative study of the rhythms of collective grief."  Here's the plot summary:

When Percy Harding, Goliath’s most important citizen, is discovered dead by the railroad tracks outside town one perfect autumn afternoon, no one can quite believe it’s really happened. Percy, the president of the town’s world-renowned furniture company, had seemed invincible. Only Rosamond Rogers, Percy’s secretary, may have had a glimpse of how and why this great man has fallen, and that glimpse tugs at her, urges her to find out more.  Percy isn’t the first person to leave Rosamond: everybody seems to, from her husband, Hatley, who walked out on her years ago; to her complicated daughter Agnes, whose girlhood bedroom was papered with maps of the places she wanted to escape to. The town itself is Rosamond’s anchor, but it is beginning to quiver with the possibility of change. The high school girls are writing suicide poetry. The town’s young, lumbering sidewalk preacher is courting Rosamond’s daughter. A troubled teenaged boy plans to burn Main Street to the ground. And the furniture factory itself—the very soul of Goliath—threatens to close.  In the wake of the town’s undoing, Rosamond seeks to reunite the grief-shaken community.

By the way, in case you missed it earlier this week, here's Susan's "My First Time" guest blog: The First Time I Spoke With My Agent on the Phone.

If you'd like a chance at winning a signed copy of Goliath, all you have to do is answer this question:

In the opening lines of Goliath, what does a teenage boy, "coming in from an afternoon of lighting fires along far-flung creeks," find splayed out in the mud?  (You can find the answer in this excerpt posted on Susan's website.)

Email your answer to thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Please e-mail me the answer, rather than posting it in the comments section.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on May 31--at which time I'll draw the winning name.  I'll announce the lucky reader on June 1.  If you'd like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week Quivering Pen newsletter, simply add the words "Sign me up for the newsletter" in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you've done either or both of those, send me an additional e-mail saying "I've shared" and I'll put your name in the hat twice.