Sheila Kay Adams

Set in the turbulence of 1860s America, My Old True Love is a beautifully written, lyrical homage to the Appalachian area of North Carolina, its culture and its people. In her acknowledgements, Sheila Kay Adams cites Lee Smith, another remarkable Southern writer, as an influence, and that influence is obvious on every page. Adams, like Smith, knows the people she writes about as if she had lived with them. She captures their humanity and their struggles and transfers them from the paper they show more are written upon to the center of your heart.

The story is told from the perspective of Arty Wallin, a very strong female character with an extremely genuine voice. The story revolves around her brother, Hackley; her cousin, who is more like a son to her, Larkin; and their love for one woman, Mary. There is not a weak character in this novel. I was so in love with Granny and Larkin, but even the less loveable characters were completely human and understandable. Every one of them had flaws, and all were fighting their baser natures, so you couldn’t help pulling for everyone to make it out of the dilemma they were trapped inside, or that was trapped inside them.

The book is sprinkled with bits of wisdom and moments of poignance, that are never sappy or overly sentimental, and sometimes they are so perfectly visual that they startle.

The fog just draped itself on me as I moved, frothing my hair and brows with silver, and the ice crystals in the fog parted as I moved through and left my shape behind me. It looked like I’d walked through a tunnel until it filled itself back in.

“Maybe that’s what living is like,” I said. “Maybe Fee just moved on through and left his shape.” I knowed my voice was sad but could not help it, as that is how I felt.

There is love and joy in this novel, but much of it is set during the Civil War and in an area that required much of a man to even survive, so there is also an abundance of grief. What makes it so relatable is that the grief is the kind that still touches all our lives daily. For it is not a war story, although the war is there, it is a story of life and the cycle of life that includes losses of many kinds.

"Then in the most pitiful voice he said, "It feels like a hole has opened up in my life, Amma. Will it ever go away?"

And though I hated to say it, I surely had to, because again I could only tell him the truth. "It won't go away, honey," I said. "You will just have to figure out how to live your life around it.

I have experienced enough loss to know the truth of that statement and I believe if you live long enough you are riddled with such holes.

Adams delves masterfully into the heart and soul of these people. She shows us how they love, sometimes with too much of themselves; how they grieve for the losses they cannot avoid and the ones they cause; and how they pour themselves into the mountains, the family, the people and the songs with which they are raised. Some people have the gift of the storyteller--they can draw you in and make you feel both the happiness and the sadness of another person--Sheila Kay Adams is one of those gifted few. So, I can now close my eyes and hear the fiddle music, see the cocky tilt of the head of Hackley as he plays, smell the lilacs in the rainwater, see a handsome man coming across a mountain ridge and know it is Larkin, and hear the steady rock of Granny’s chair. I accept the gift, Sheila Kay, and I thank you for it. show less

Adams voice as a known storyteller and balladeer is clear and simple in these short glimpses into her early life growing up in the community of Sodom in Madison County, North Carolina. Funny and heartwarming, we come to know many of her kinfolk and neighbors. The story of Old Christmas Eve with her Breaddaddy will leave you with a warm feeling and you'll understand her Granny best by her phrase "my hand print is all over the raising of that one." Sheila Kay Adams is a North Carolina treasure.

My Old True Love by Shield Kay Adams popped up in my recommendations from Good reads and I picked it as a January sort of wild card and I am very glad I did.

This novel is set in the mountains of North Carolina and narrated with the wonderful voice of Arty Norton, mother to a large family living in the mid-late 1800s around the time of the Civil War. The story is centred on Arty's family, of hardships, love, life and the appreciation of the simple things in life like family, nature, changing show more seasons and how in times of need families look out for one another.

"I must say that there is a certain peace in knowing that nature will move things in the direction they've been going for generation after generation"

I loved so much about this book it brings you right back in time and makes you appreciate our ancestors. The story itself is loosely based on relatives of the authors and the characters are richly and beautifully written and so believable of their time. I loved the character of Arty who is the narrator throughout the story and she brings a wonderful charm and wit to the book which could have been a sad read otherwise. The story conveys a wonderful sense of family and a great appreciation of the simple things in life like the coming together of family and neighbours at the time when music and songs were the only form of entertainment and yet people talked, sang, danced and enjoyed life even though they struggled from day to day with large families and wars and weather.

My brother was just a runner of women and that is all there is to say about it, really. I will have to say here that I do not understand this, as I have caught many babies in my lifetime and all of the equipment looks pretty much the same to me" (just one of Arty's witty observations which really made me laugh)

Interwoven into the story are the ballads of ancestors who settled in the mountains and who's music and songs are remembered throughout the story.

This is not a novel about the Civil War but a novel that gives us a wonderful window into eighteen century life in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina and how a family lived, loved in a time of civil war and how the war impacted on the lives of a people who were already struggling.

Really enjoyed this novel and spent a lot of time googling places mentioned in the book Made me want to pack my bags and take a trip to the Appalachian mountains. Maybe someday soon! show less

Arty's voice rings as clear as the clean mountain air as she tells the story of her life and her nephew Larkin Stanton in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina in the mid 1800s. Arty's aunt dies in childbirth and at the tender age of 8 years old, she becomes the nearest thing to a mother Larkin will ever know. Through family celebrations and deaths and with the Civil War as a backdrop, Arty's life unfolds as one of deep sorrow and simple joys. The first line in the book will hook you: show more

"Some people is born at the start of a long hard row to hoe. Well, I am older than God's dog and been in this world a long time and it seems to me that right from the git-go, Larkin Stanton had the longest and hardest row I've ever seen." show less