Cold Sassy Tree

Summer reading at its finest and one wonderful portrayal of small town Southern life, circa 1906 that I have read to date. The characters are full of life and Will Tweedy is the perfect voice of a 14-year-old boy trying to make sense of all the craziness happening around him. The story presents a number of small-town biases that would make for wonderful discussions in a book group setting: the differences between town and mill-town folk (mill-town folks being the ones who did grueling manual labour in the cotton mills); North versus South points of view on everything from celebrating Independence Day to a woman's place in society. Through all the family bickering, moral posturing and other social machinations of the Cold Sassy folk, show more Will Tweedy's coming-of-age story is a story filled with heart, and had me laughing and shacking my head at some of his "boys will be boys" pranks, all the while exploring topics of love, death and religion.

A perfect summer read, even if it may come across as being a bit dated for some readers. show less

It’s 1906 and Will Tweedy, a 14-year-old boy in a small Georgia town, tells us stories about his family. His tales mainly focus on this stubborn grandfather Rucker Blakeslee, who decides to remarry a very young woman only three weeks after his wife dies.
His adult daughters are scandalized and the town of Cold Sassy is shocked. Rucker’s new wife, Miss Love Simpson, is a strong woman, but she still wants to be accepted by the traditional town. Rucker runs the local grocery store, so everyone in town knows his business. The novel captures the core of small town life. Everything you do is under a microscope and people are so concerned about what their nosy neighbors will think of their every decision.

The book focuses on Will’s whole show more family, from his bossy Aunt Loma to his quiet, devoted father Hoyt. It’s written almost like a collection of short stories, weaving from one adventure to the next. The chapter that takes place on a train trestle was so intense it had a heart racing! I also loved the scenes with the Rucker and his wife Mattie Lou before she died. He’s a tough old bird, but when it comes to love he’s a complete softie.

The point-of-view did remind me of To Kill a Mockingbird, not just because it’s a child of a similar age, but also because it's set during a similar time period in the south. There's an observational honesty that comes from choosing a narrator like that. The story never reaches the same depth as To Kill a Mockingbird, but it has a similar tone.

BOTTOM LINE: I really loved reading about Will’s adventures and I was surprised and touched by the serious tone the book took on towards the end. I’d highly recommend this one for anyone who enjoys coming-of-age stories, turn-of-the-century fiction or Southern novels.

“To me they were like a book, a book with the last chapter missing. And I couldn’t wait to know how it ended.”

“To mourn is not the same as to be in mourning, which means wearing a black armband and sitting in the parlor talking to people who call on the bereaved. At first you feel important, the armband makes you special like having on a badge, but after a day or two it stops meaning anything. But to mourn, that’s different. To mourn is to be eaten alive with homesickness for the person.”

“My mother always said, ‘Never expect church members to be perfect, Christians are still people.’” show less

My friend has a special relationship with this book. By a "relationship" I mean that she had a couple copies find her and so now we give her every copy we come across, sometimes 35 at a time. Despite having dozens of copies of this book pass through my hands, I had never actually stopped to read it. So when I spotted it on audio at the library, I decided to give it a shot.

This felt like a YA book before YA even became a genre. It's the story of young Will Tweedy in the town of Cold Sassy in 1906 and his family. After his grandmother died, his grandfather almost immediately married a much younger (Yankee) woman. The scandal of it spreads through the town. It's a story of Will's experiences from camping with his friends to getting run show more over by a train to finding out about his grandfather and Miss Love's relationship to the first new car in town (his father's!). Everyone feels like a real person I enjoyed getting to know. In fact, I cried at the ending; I really didn't see that coming. It was a wonderful look at a unique set of characters in a time and place I wouldn't have gotten to know otherwise. I definitely enjoyed it more than I thought I would. show less

Despite the main theme of death and how people deal with it personally and in community, this book manages to entertain with its spirited characters, spot-on Appalachian dialect, insights into small town life, and page after page of homespun humor. It's not a "nice story." This is a book that deals with the dark side of family life and flawed humanity, but it doesn't plunge the reader into despair because the evil is counterbalanced with lessons in love, mercy and forgiveness. Delighted to have run across this story.

One of the "Southernest" Southern Fiction books I've ever read. It's a rambling sort of book. It doesn't tell one story, but a number of them, weaving in and out of each other. Because of this, even when it's at its best, the book doesn't propel the reader to the next chapter, because as often as not, the next chapter will totally change the subject. As such, it took me a while to plug through it, even though I mostly enjoyed it.
Will Tweedy is narrating the tale, telling about approximately one year, back when he was 14 years old, living in Cold Sassy, Georgia, in 1906. The central character of the book is Will's belligerent, demanding, outlandish, grandfather, who marries a woman who works in his store a few weeks after the death of show more his first wife. The scandal shocks the town and horrifies Will's mother, and his Aunt Loma. And that sets the first ball rolling for all that is yet to come. There are far too many little tales to mention them in a brief review. I would have liked to have gotten to know Lightfoot McClendon a little better though. show less

This book infuriated me at times. I felt bad for Miss Love, wanted to slap Rucker's daughters, and even though I usually hate family drama novels, read this front to back. Somehow the frustration of the characters made me feel better about my life. It's a good southern novel that addresses all kinds of things, my favorite being the social taboos of marrying a younger woman so soon after your wife dies.

To begin with, please do not compare this to To Kill a Mockingbird. It's not really fair to do that, because it raises expectations a little too high. This is a vivid, realistic depiction of small town life and a family, warts and all. The dialogue is good and reminds me so much of my great grandmother and her kids (my Paw Paw and great aunts and uncles). Unlike To Kill a Mockingbird, it does not focus on human rights and social issues. I would say it is more of a study of personality. There are hints at the social injustices going on all around Will Tweedy and he seems aware of some of them, but they are not the focus of this story and no great wrongs are going to be righted or even fought about. That's not what this story is about. So show more if you go in expecting characters like Atticus Finch and Boo Radley, you will be disappointed. But that's not the author's fault. Read Cold Sassy Tree for its own sake and its own characters, and you are just about bound to enjoy it. You might even cry at the end. show less