Sharyn McCrumb

Wow! I don't remember when I have so enjoyed a book. Sharyn McCrumb wove a story that touched the very heart of Appalachia and it's people. She portrayed them not as ignorant hillbillies which is often the case, but as people that love their land, their stories, their songs and their culture. It's a story of mistakes, both old and present and how they overcame and learned from them. Read this book. I guarantee you won't be able to put it down.

Sharyn McCrumb revisits her most beloved characters from her Ballad novels in Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past, and she does so in fine style. McCrumb's writing effortlessly imparts her knowledge of the heritage, customs, and language of the people who live in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. In fact she made me smile early on simply by using a phrase that I grew up with and haven't heard since I moved away: "as independent as a hog on ice." Many things can bring back memories show more of home. Language is one of them.

Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and Deputy Joe LeDonne's storyline is a bit of very enjoyable comic relief. Never underestimate the wiliness of an old man. On the other hand, Nora's task is a bit more serious, and it involves her knowledge that there is more to this world than the eye can see. Everything was going well at the old Honeycutt place. Shirley Haverty and her husband immediately started fixing up the neglected house that they intended to use as a summer home. It was only when they decided to stay for the winter and celebrate Christmas that life began to get truly interesting, and Nora's knowledge of the Christmas of 1943 will prove to be the key in bringing harmony back to the Haverty's house.

If you're already a fan of McCrumb's Ballad series, I know I'm singing to the choir. If you have yet to read one of those Ballad novels (the first is If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O), I urge you to read this novella. It's the perfect introduction to a marvelous series of books, and a wonderful little story in its own right. show less

As usual with Sharyn McCrumb's Applachian novels, an ancient song is at the heart of this story. Lark McCourry, a famous folksinger who has left the mountains and her difficult relationship with her father behind, takes a notion that there was a song she heard sung as a child that would be quite perfect for her next album...a song she does not fully remember, and which she thinks she might introduce to the world. In order to track the song down, and reluctantly to visit her dying father, she show more plans a trip back home. There are multiple stories intertwined in this novel, as it follows generations of Lark's family, and that elusive song, through the centuries from the time her ancestor Malcolm was kidnapped from a Hebrides beach at the age of 10 and pressed into service at sea in the 18th century, through the American Revolution, and the Civil War, to the recent past. Every time I put the book down I was amazed at how much Story was contained in the relatively short segment I had finished. It's a compressed generational saga that doesn't feel rushed or hurried, a sprawling historical novel that's somehow perfectly told in under 300 pages. I am in awe of the amount of research that goes into all of McCrumb's novels, but here she has outdone herself, and it all fits seamlessly into the narrative without ever feeling like a lesson. (In an author's note she explains how much of this story is based on her own family history, and also how she learned some of the historical details included in it--for instance, she found someone who could teach her how to load and fire a Springfield muzzle-loader such as her Civil War ancestor would have used. "That experience gave me an entirely new perspective on war.' I'll bet it did.) Naturally, Sheriff Arrowood and Nora Bonesteel play significant roles in the modern framework of the story, and Deputy Joe LeDonne has some interesting experiences that help him put his own past to rest. I don't often give this type of work 5 stars, but this one deserves every one of them. show less

I just love this sweet, tender, insightful look at a bunch of "pilgrims" on a Dale Earnhardt memorial tour, a year and a half after his death. Sharyn McCrumb indicates in her "author's note" that she wanted to write a book about the phenomena of "secular sainthood" -- the way people idolize certain heroes in life and even more in untimely death (can you say "Elvis?") and the impact it has on their lives. She found the perfect subject in writing about a bunch of Earnhardt fans touring race show more tracks in the southeast.

We see the tour from a wide variety of perspectives -- that of "true blue" fans; a pair of newlyweds married in the infield at Bristol Motor Speedway; a clergyman, new to NASCAR and more comfortable touring medieval pilgrimage sites, accompanying a sick child on a "last wish" trip; a NASCAR-disdaining judge "dragged" along by her fanatic sister; a southern aristocratic lady NASCAR fan; a man who "inherited" the tour ticket from the father he never met; and the tour guide, a jaded ex-racer who wants back into the sport and who didn't really like Dale all that much.

I love how she takes all those assorted, clashing, jumbled up perspectives, this unlikely band of pilgrims, and weaves a yarn that eventually has them all pulling together in a crisis.

I love that it's written so that a newbie to NASCAR can understand it, but I also love the little "insider" references. (I caught more of them this time through).

OK, so the end is a little hokey -- maybe cornier than Kansas in July -- but that's OK with me. show less