A Parchment of Leaves

A Parchment of Leaves is a novel by the American writer Silas House, published in 2002.

Vine is Cherokee, born and raised in the early years of the twentieth century, and she sets her eye on a young white man, Saul, giving up her family and their homeland to settle among his people. She moves into a household made up of Saul's mother, Esme, who is sharp and slow to love; his brother Aaron, a gifted banjo player with a hot and unpredictable temper; and Aaron's wife Aidia, who is flighty and talkative and of Melungeon descent.

Vine's mother had warned her that the negotiation into a new family and a new culture would not be simple, and it turns out to be worse than she had imagined. The people of the town treat her as an outsider because of who she is, and she slowly comes to understand that Aaron is fixated on her in a way that has nothing to do with family feeling.

What begins as difficulty becomes a test of her spirit. The novel follows the violent turn that events take and what Vine takes from it about forgiving other people and, more importantly, about finding a way to forgive herself.