Customer Reviews

Black Mountain Breakdown

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am from Richlands, VA, the little town neighboring Lee Smith's hometown of Grundy. This was the first book that I read of Lee's, and it inspired me to read the others. They are all wonderful books. It seems like I can actually hear the voices of her characters coming right off the pages at me. I guess it's just because I've actually known people like them. The Appalachian dialect and culture are captured simply, yet eloquently, the way they should be. I am a writer of Southern-Appalachian fiction myself, not published yet, but I hope to eventually. Lee Smith has been a real inspiration for me to continue my own works. I reccomend this book or any of her others to anyone, not just the ones who hail from a rural background. They're sure to give a greater appreciation of Appalachian people and culture, and maybe even ourselves. Thanks very much.

If novels dealing with sexually troubled young women who are suffering from great mental trauma are your bag -- go ahead and read this one. Although it is well written, the constant fall from sanity expressed in the character Crystal is more than a little depressing -- it is very tiring to read. I loved Fair and Tender Ladies - perhaps because of the character's ability to progress instead of regress. I am not dumping this book altogether -- it was primarily well written; however, a book about the demise of someone who is not written to be a likeable character is like hearing news about someone who does not even qualify as an acquaintance: it is news you do not need to hear. I also saw a lot of similarities in subject in Faith Sullivan's Empress of One, which I did enjoy a bit more than this novel, due in part to the main character having more going for her than just looks and overt sexuality.

Smith's character Crystal Spangler is many things, but boring is not one of them. My first reading of this story, I felt a lot like the reviewers here who didn't like the book. The strange thing was that, try as I might, I couldn't forget about it, and went back to it again in the last few days. What is this story about, besides life in the Appalachians and the locals who inhabit it? It's about a circle that's sometimes clear and sometimes fuzzy that is nevertheless complete.

Agnes and Crystal are best friends for life, but we see from the very beginning that big, frumpy Agnes is more well grounded and stronger than her pretty blond, blue-eyed friend who is given to overreacting to her father's dark poetry readings and need to be taken care of by others. Early on, Agnes is a sort of surrogate mother for her. Crystal's father is a heavy smoking alcoholic who has withdrawn into his own space, dependent on both Crystal and his wife Lorena's attention as he slowly chooses to slip away from life. The three Spangler children are effected by him and Lorena's co-dependant enabling in different ways. Jules is bitter, angry, and prefers men to women, ashamed of his family and home. Sykes is flighty and given to following any direction the wind blows in, but he calms down eventually. Crystal is a lot like Sykes, but she isn't as strong because she is raped by an uncle in her junior year of high school, and then, having blocked the entire incident from her mind, goes home to find her father dead.

Crystal will become a floater: months after the blocked out assault and Grant Spangler's death, Crystal will break up with her steady boyfriend Roger Lee, but doesn't know just why. My guess is that she feels he's too closely tied with both the conscious and unconscious incidents. She will begin a somewhat remote and intimately charged relationship with a local bad boy who eventually leaves her for country stardom in Nashville. Constantly needing something to hold onto (like she held onto her daddy's robe upon finding him dead and having a nervous breakdown), she discovers Jesus, then she discovers random male partners. Crystal is empty and just doesn't care. She drifts like a leaf on the wind, always desperate for something to hold onto, constantly anxiety ridden and sometimes lost in a world of hallucinations. She takes up with a hippie radical who ends up hanging himself and has another nervous breakdown.

She returns to the Appalachians and becomes a school teacher, one of the few times she is finally together and admirable, because she genuinely cares about her students. There's just one problem with Crystal; every time things are going half-well, she finds a way to screw it up. A phone call from Jules, her hippie brother boyfriend telling her she's doomed. These things all stick in her mind. We also see Agnes's point of view through this all, sometimes jealous, but mostly knowing all along that Crystal lets other people put ideas in her head that harm her. Crystal is always way too vulnerable despite her strengths.

What goes around comes around full circle. Roger Lee still loves her and dumps his family for her. For a while she is happy with him, but eventually things happen similar to their high school years. Once again, a chain of events makes her overly anxious, and then she recalls the forgotten incidents...

This book is an eery and painful portrait of a young girl who came from a highly effected, dysfunctional home and, through a series of unfortunate circumstances, can never quite take control of her own life, always needing someone else to take care of her. If you are uncomfortable with this story, perhaps it's because you see elements of yourself in Crystal. All too often, I admit I do. What gets me most is how she always ends up talking like her father, beginning sentences with "Listen...," how she never outgrows the need to have men tell her stories, and how Agnes is the one who ends up taking more care of her in the end than her mother. Full circle, and a sad one at that. More disturbing is how nothing, save for the heat of the moment, ever seems to fulfill her for long. People like this are more real than we want to believe, and Lee Smith has brought this home in a bittersweet and unforgettably prosaic style. If you like books that don't end with a glass slipper and a prince, I urge you to give this one a try. Crystal Spangler is not always likeable, but she definitely isn't forgettable.

I love Lee Smith's books. She captures life and all the curves it can and does throw at us.

BLACK MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN deals with Crystal, a young teenage girl living in the Appalachias. She is beautiful, she is popular, she is kind, she is sweet. She is a cheerleader, she dates any boy she wants to, she gets good grades. EVERYONE loves Crystal! She is just a golden girl and not one that you can't stand because she has it all. Crystal is just well loved by everyone in her small Southern town.

But Crystal has her demons, or rather the demons have Crystal. While young teenage Crystal is visiting her two doting aunts who live in another small town, she has a life-altering horrific event happen to her. What I liked about how Lee Smith handled this situation was this - she never mentions what happened to Crystal; however, it is assumed. Then, towards the end of the book, that event is brought to light and explains a lot of why Crystal has a breakdown.

After this event that really mentally/emotionally hurts Crystal and then with the death of her father, she slowly but surely starts to loose her grip on life. She becomes more and more detached about her life and people around her. She dates constantly. She initiates sex with these young boys and they can't get enough of her. However, Crystal is still the most popular girl in town and adored by men/women and boys/girls. No one seems to notice how Crystal is loosing it, or actually having a nervous breakdown.

She goes through boys, having sex with most of them, not caring, not worrying about it, and not truly even "being" there. She breaks the hearts of all of them. She has tons of friends, but has a true and steadfast friend in Agnes who lives right next door to her. Agnes is the opposite of Crystal -- dowdy, serious, righteous, but she loves Crystal and looks after her always. Everyone should be blessed to have a friend such as Agnes.

Crystal's condition worsens as she goes through her life. Events come and go and she just flits through her life, detached and not caring. She leaves her home town for a while, basically loosing contact with friends and family. However, after years, she returns home and seems to get things together for herself mentally by teaching. She turns out to be a great and very caring teacher. You find yourself rooting for Crystal and hoping she can handle life! However, life throws more at Crystal.

In the end, Crystal does just break down as the title suggests. This is not a happy book; however, it is an excellent book. It is a fast, short read and one I will recommend to friends and family. Lee Smith is a great writer and you can tell that she puts her heart and soul into her work.

Thankfully, Lee Smith has a large list of books so you can sit down and enjoy more of her works. I haven't read one of her books yet that I did not like.

Thanks, Ms. Smith. More, please.

Thank you -- Pam

Black Mountain Breakdown is Lee Smith's first novel and chronicles the life of Crystal Spangler from teenager-hood through young adult-hood. Crystal is the youngest of her family and the love of her mother's life because she was a late baby and her older brothers had "left" in one sense or another by the time she was in her early teens.

Crystal is beautiful, emotional, and hard to catch. She also reflects back what others give her so that they love her without really knowing why or who she is. Crystal's father Grant is dying at the beginning of the novel--simply sitting in a chair in the front parlor of the house waiting for death to take him. It's a sad existence, but he and Crystal have a connection that foreshadows Crystal's own mental health issues throughout the rest of her life.

After her father's death Crystal turns to anyone to give her life substance and meaning, but only turns to herself once and that is when she is teaching junior high--a vocation she seems to have a knack for.

Her friend Agnes stays with her throughout her life and the two of them mirror one another in life experiences. While Crystal's seems to be living high and happy, Agnes is miserable, but as Crystal begins her decline, Agnes begins her climb to becoming quite the entrepreneur.

BMB is a good book even if it is about a very depressing and tragic life. The mental illness isn't surprising considering the family history and experiences Crystal has, but it is sad nonetheless.

I cannot begin to describe what a powerful and touching book this is. Lee Smith tapped into memories of my childhood in Dickenson County, Virginia with uncanny insight. Anyone rooted in this area should run to get this book. Anyone who wants to know anything about mountain life should run to get this book. Lee Smith is truly a diamond out of the coal county. Read with with Ralph Stanley on the CD. This may give you a brief glimpse of what heaven should be like.

I had the unique experience of sitting in a hotel lobby reading this book when Lee Smith walked in. I'll bet writers love catching people absorbed in their books. This is a deft narrative that will not deliver a nice neat moral for you, nor polish any of its characters to likeability; it will however let you peer intensely into the characters' lives and make you see them without flinching. The very mysteriousness of the heroine Crystal's lack of self-knowledge--and refusal to know herself--is one of the most chilling aspects, aside from the physical trauma to which she is subjected. You might want to attribute all of Crystal's later behavior to these early, formative experiences, but this author doesn't make things so easy. The book resists distillation--like life--but the characters invite compassion, and however much Crystal may feel distanced from her own story, the reader will find it hard to remain detached, especially when caught up in the clear, beautiful prose.

this book just didn't do it for me. I still don't see the point and the ending left me feeling like "so what". Lee Smith is a talented writer so I won't give up reading other books by her, but this one won't be on my list of saves.

Well, I'm a huge Lee Smith fan, so I'm surprised to find myself giving only 3 start to one of her creations. But this one just didn't live up to what her readers have come to expect from her.
I couldn't really get behind Crystal Spangler and her remoteness. It's clear to readers what her problem is from close to the beginning, but it takes the rest of the looooong book for Cristal herself to figure it out, and when she does, she just becomes more passive and decides to die.
I gave up real interest in the outcome long before I came to the end.
The one I'd have found more interesting was Agnes, her across-the-street friend, through whose eyes we see Crystal over the passage of years. She was a much stronger character than Crystal herself.

I loved this book.............it just touched me and stayed with me for weeks. She never writes below a five star book!