Devil's Dream [Paperback]

Lee Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1993

"She writes lyric, luminous prose; her craft is so strong it becomes transparent, and, like the best of storytellers, she knows how to get out of the way so that the story can tell itself."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Moses Bailey, a preacher's son, forbade his fiddle-loving wife Kate Malone to play. But while he was gone on his travels, looking for God, Kate couldn't help herself, and began fiddling for her three children. For the love of music, Kate is willing to defy anyone who tries to stop her. From generation to generation, the gift and love of music cannot be stopped, and no Malone is immune from its spell.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Smith's rollicking hillbilly saga about the family of a country music star, strong characters, their matter-of-fact voices and their affection for their rustic mountain home make for a rich multigenerational tale.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this loving tribute to country music and its artists, Smith ( Me and My Baby View the Eclipse , LJ 2/15/90; Fair and Tender Ladies , LJ 9/15/88) traces the history of this uniquely American tradition through several generations of the Bailey family of Grassy Springs, Virginia. Starting in 1833 with the marriage of Moses Bailey, a preacher's son who thinks fiddle music is the voice of the Devil laughing, to Kate Malone, who comes from a fiddle-playing family, the Baileys are torn between their love of God and their love of music. Plain Baptist hymns and haunting Appalachian ballads shape the lives of the early generations. Grandsons R.C. and Durwood marry Lucie and Tampa, who, as the Grassy Branch Girls, take part in the early "hillbilly recordings" of the 1920s. Rose Annie and Blackjack Johnny Raines are the "King and Queen of Country Music" in the Rockabilly 1950s until Rose Annie shoots Johnny after he's cheated on her once too often. Cousin Katie Crocker abandons the bland Nashville sound of the 1960s when she cuts a traditional record with her family at the Opryland Hotel. Warm, amusing, moving, this novel represents Smith at her best. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/92.
- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345382919
• ISBN-13: 978-0345382917
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,120,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Book, April 30, 2001

By 

Philinda Stern Gruen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Devil's Dream (Paperback)

What a wonderful book. Quite often, a book is real good until the ending, and then I'm let down, But this has a really good ending too. This tale is really excellent: a verbal piece of art. I liked all the lineage and interconnections in this large musical family. I learned what it's like to have mucic within you -- to write as well as perform. I liked the character developments -- no one all good or all bad, but all very interesting. I recommend this book highly. One learns about US history, country music, human nature, and it's entertaining to boot!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vividly written and alive, December 6, 2002

By 

Alex Bledsoe (Madison, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Devil's Dream (Paperback)

This book is, along with P. F. Kluge's novel "Eddie and the Cruisers," possibly the best novel about what music means and where it comes from that I've read. The sense of time and place is unerringly evoked, the characters are simultaneously archetypal and idiosynchratic, and the overlap of both generations and musical styles makes a rich, rewarding experience. Really, really top-notch stuff.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good country music, January 10, 1999

By 

B. Michael Harlow ([e-mail]) (Vermont) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Devil's Dream (Paperback)

This is another of Lee Smith's novels that progresses chronologically through generations, each successive generation represented through a group of narrators (like Oral History) and again her ability to delineate character through that character's voice is amazing. I really respect her as a writer and will keep reading her books until I have exhausted their availability. This time there are five generations of the country music industry, going from backwoods denizens of Grassy Creek who are downright suspicious of fiddle music, trusting no music but the "old hard high" hymns and progressing on down past the Grand Ole Opry to today. I have often made fun of the maudlin excesses of Nashville: when my adult son was a toddler, friends, my wife and I used to give the kid quarters to put in the jukebox in the St. Johnsbury diner to play "I'm Hiring a Wino to Decorate Our Home." (Evidently folks from the Academy where one friend worked did not come to the diner, and the regulars there seemed to think it was cute). Anyway, I was surprised by how affecting I found this book to be. Smith finds the real people behind "genuine country," or at least she creates an illusion that she has captured the actual personalities in their reactions to the hard-won petty triumphs and the terrible sudden tragedies and all the rest behind the sappy songs. I liked the book a lot and Smith obviously loved her subject, judging by the pages of acknowledgements at the end and her comments in them.