Customer Reviews

Come and Go, Molly Snow: A Novel

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

 

 

Mary Ann Taylor-Hall lives down the road from my aunt's farm in Kentucky. I have never met her, but I feel like I know her already. This novel, her first, is one of the best works of literature that I have ever read. Ever since I received my first copy of the book, one autographed to my grandmother, I have never let it slip out of my mind.

The reader cannot help but journey into the very core of Carrie. When she holds her fiddle, it is as if the wooden masterpiece is also extending from your hands. The drones omitted from the pages go directly to the reader's ears, never ceasing to convey the sorrow and utter hopelessness that she feels.

This book is amazing, and I recommend it to anyone who has a heart beating inside of their chest. You will read it and beg for more -- at least I did.

This book is so hypnotic that, for the first time in my life, I missed my subway stop on my way home while reading it!

I would love to know what part of this book is true, if any. She writes it so realistically that it reads like a heart-breaking autobiography.

My women's book group read this over year ago, this story about a woman very unlike any of us, and yet we still refer to it in many discussions. Why? Because Carrie is, after all, very much like us in her motherhood and in her loss that most of us can only talk about if we preface it with "God forbid it should happen to any of us". The absolute sincerity of both her passions and her numbness are irresistible and her ultimate incremental steps toward recovery feel like a triumph for the reader as well.

Come and Go, Molly Snow, by Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, is a novel about bluegrass music, the loss of a child, and the question of whether the "circle will be unbroken, by and by, [is there] a better home awaiting, in the sky, Lord, in the sky?" Carrie is a gifted bluegrass fiddler and single mother. She has everything going for her, fiddle player in an outstanding band, Hawktown Road with the handsome Cap, when she daydreams for a moment and her five-year-old daughter, Molly, rides her tricycle into traffic and is killed. As Carrie reminisces: "The woman stood at the clothesline, dreaming, as the child wheeled her trike into the street. Nothing will change that." While a sad subject, this book is far from maudlin; Taylor-Hall fills both the characters and the music they love with light and life. Much of the book is Carrie's coming to peace with herself, that bad things happen, and that her daughter's tragic death is not her fault. She also must come to grips with the question posed by the old-timey song of whether, with Molly and with her, the circle will be unbroken. Carrie is a strong and sympathetic character, and the choices and actions she takes to regain measure in her own life are truly gratifying.

This book pulled me into its portrait of pain, regret and loneliness -- painted in palpable and heart-splitting strokes. To say it's hypnotic and melodious seems scant praise for such a powerful work. I didn't simply read this book. I lived it and felt it; lived Cap's unraveling and felt immobilized as well. The raw emotion hits like a runaway 18-wheeler, knocking the reader into a dimension of anguish that surrounds like moassess, thick and heavy and jading ... and yet I look forward to reading it again, to savor the music and the emotion of this book, a hymn of worship to life and loss.

I loved this book. This is a well and lyrically writen from the heart type of book about a talented young musician finding inner strength in herself and her music after the loss of her daughter.

From the first page, I was carried on by Carrie. Her voice is strong and real and settles into the bones. I'll read this book again and again