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Edge of Heaven

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Edge of Heaven by Eva McCall

Edge of Heaven shouted "Read Me" from the minute I saw the cover. It's truly the most inviting cover picture I've ever seen (I work in a bookstore). It's an larger sized paperback, with a pretty side binding that makes it a nice addition to any bookshelf when it's not on the coffee table.

The story is based on the biographical story of the author's grandmother in the 1890's in the mountains of North Carolina. Lucy, 18, is the last unmarried daughter of Edmund Davenport. He trades her to a widower in need of a mother for his 13 children in return for an unknown reason. Lucy goes along with her father's wishes with a heavy heart, packs her few belongings, and moves from Georgia to Mr. Carpenter's home in the Smokies of western North Carolina.

Some of the children, ages 6 months to 15, adjust to her presence fairly well, but others treat her as an intruder, an unwelcome substitute for their real mother. The eldest, Dovey,is especially difficult and unaccepting since she's been "mother" to the younger ones and doesn't easily surrender her role to Lucy. Lucy plans to leave and try to find out more about her Cherokee mother and the legacy behind a gold locket, the only material reminder of her mother. As she awaits the peddler's return and possible escape with his help she learns the ways of the rural life in the Smokies. She meets the neighbors, learns some secrets she must keep, and endears herself to the children. Eventually, she realizes she not only loves all the children, but their father also. In the meantime, all must heal and bond after a family tragedy.

You won't find dirty words or blood and gore detail or hot sexual content - just a good, fast reading, inspirational story of southern rural life, with its illness, poverty, violence, sense of family, loss, and love. Lucy returns to the mountain top (the cover scene) and sees the "edge of Heaven" in the view of clouds over the mountains with the sun streaming through them. "Could her ma's spirit be part of this magnificent light?" Surely, it is, for now Lucy learns why her father traded her, but also, the legacy of the locket.

As a middle-aged mother and a native North Carolinian myself, I'd thought this book very appealing for women, especially from the South. However, when sub-teaching in a Michigan junior high class and seeing a 8th grade girl reading Edge of Heaven when her work was done, I realized this book can speak to any female from age 12 to 102, wherever she's from.

At seventeen, Lucy Davenport has never ventured off the Georgia mountain where she lived with her full-blooded Cherokee mother and her white father, Edmund. But it's 1895 and times are changing rapidly for the half-girl, half woman. Her two sisters have married and moved away, mother has recently died and Lucy and her father are left alone to cope. It's a hard scrabble life there on the mountain with only her dead mother's spirit and Jasper the dog to help her.

Holman Carpenter's wife had died six months earlier, and he needs a wife to take of his thirteen children (ages thirteen to six months). Edmund and Holman make a deal in which Holman takes Lucy as his wife, but it isn't until three-fourths through the book that readers learn why Edmund consented to the deal.

When they reach his farm in North Carolina, Lucy meets the children. Some like her, some resent her, some don't even understand why she's there. Lucy spends the next two years plotting to run away. Her Cherokee relatives are not too far away, and she is sure that they'll take her in. But the children, who so desperately need someone to care for them, tug at her heartstrings. Along the way, readers meet Jake the peddler who captures her heart and offers her only real chance for escape; Bessie, the large, homely woman who befriends the only girl-woman and teaches her to read; and the children---Annie May and Dovey---who stand out as an ally and an enemy. The scenes with Annie May and Dovey will both break your heart and make you so mad that you want to slap some sense into the insolent girl.

As time goes by, Lucy finds it harder and harder to leave her new home. Although sickness and death hover around her, it is love that finally surrounds her.

EDGE OF HEAVEN takes readers back to what life must have really been like in the late 1890s. Thankfully Ms. McCall rarely brings up the issue of Lucy's parentage (half white/half Cherokee). Its delineation is done very subtly, mainly through the use of teas and herbs that she learned from her mother. Many readers judge a book by its first page and while this book does a few flaws on page one, McCall corrects them beginning on page two, and has developed a marvelous, fast-paced, taut, novel/biography.

EDGE OF HEAVEN is McCall's first novel, and her talent for creating memorable characters is remarkable. I was upset when I reached the final page of EDGE OF HEAVEN because I didn't want Lucy's story to end. I wanted to know how her life turns out there on the mountain. However, as luck would have it, I understand that Bright Mountain Books is nearing publication of a sequel of this amazing novel titled "Children of the Mountain." I can't wait to get my hands on it!

I had a couple of conversations by email with Eva McCall before I read this book. Previously I said that my daughter and I share a love of literature and trade books we like and discuss them. Ms. McCall suggested her book, not for me, but for my daughter.

I don't know why people think a man can't love a book that is filled with life's experiences, that is sensitive and moving. At the same time this book is crisply written. It's very easy to find yourself lost in the lives of the characters. I think it's okay for a man, even in this politically correct society, to identify with a young woman's hopes and needs. Perhaps a little more of that wouldn't hurt anybody.

Any parent who has stood up around-the-clock with a sick child can't help but pray along with Lucy, the main character, for her young charge's recovery. Many of the scenes in the book reminded me of various people in my own family: the wisdom and kindness that can be shown by an eleven-year-old girl; the awesome courage of a very sick little boy; the laying-aside of the aspirations of a late-teenage girl when responsibility beckons...aspirations that are rekindled again and again until they are finally realized; and love that transcends death.

I hesitate to even whisper the name William Faulkner (shhhh), but, darn it, her characters are evocative of those found in Faulkner's works. He didn't mine all the gold in those shafts.

I highly recommend this book. Ms. McCall is an author who will find her name mentioned among this country's greatest. College professors will require that their students read her books. I can't wait for her next effort.

I was introduced to this novel by the author herself. I understand it is her first, and it is a good initial effort. While a little rough around the edges, it is at the same time simple and unpretentious. It has the nice warm feel of family lore. One can just imagine Ms. McCall's grandmother telling her this story in bits and pieces over long winter nights in the mountains.

One can only hope that, in the near future, Eva McCall can get a larger publishing firm to give her work the attention it deserves.

I came across this author and book quite by accident while searching genealogy queries for Macon County, NC. Once I received the book and began reading, I could hardly wait to get back to it each time I had to put it down. Having grown up in the actual county where Lucy Davenport lived with Holman Carpenter and in much the same circumstances of her environment, I can truly relate to her experiences and struggles. I, too, was separated from my parents and siblings at age 9, next to the youngest of 12 children who were all born at home by midwife; struggling each day just to survive. Edge of Heaven through Lucy Davenport and Eva brought me back to a place where character and strength are built through hard times endured. I was so glad to learn that Holman was indeed an honorable man and felt throughout the entire book that he was; recognizing the patterns of his disappearances. It is often through the experience of harsh realities that we discover our true strength and Eva, in her telling of this story, helped to bring back wonderful memories of the laughter we built into the walls of our homes and hearts. I remember simple childhood pleasures such as lightening bugs, making wishes by blowing dandelions into the wind, haint stories, weird noises in the woods, making mud pies and the same experiences of Lucy Davenport. She may have lived in the 1890's, but for all intent and purposes, I lived along side her. Edge of Heaven reaffirmed to me that a person can overcome poverty, illness, heartbreak or any other trial they might encounter and climb up out of the valleys to the mountaintops and be stronger in the climbing. I thank God for those experiences and I know that I am stronger for having lived through those times. I also thank God that I came across Eva and Edge of Heaven and through the renewal I received as a result of having read it, I traveled back to my childhood in North Carolina and relived those times. Today, I ordered Children of the Mountains and can hardly wait until it arrives. Thank you for this book and for the memories - this is a must-read! Thank you and GOD Bless you - please write many more!

In Edge of Heaven, Eva McCall recounts the story of her grandmother's marriage to a man with 13 children per a deal with her father. The story is fascinating. The characters are profound and vibrant. Lucy, the main character, finds herself in a new, inhospitable world with a husband she finds frightening and who is seldom home, the eldest daughter who despises her because she feels she is taking her mother's place, a peddler called Jake who has the power to quell Lucy's loneliness but is also hiding a secret, and gruff Herby Ledford who gives her a hard time. There are many interesting tales hiding in this book's pages that can keep you reading and reading tirelessly. And by the time you finish the book a sweet feeling of nostalgia creeps over as if you had lived the entire story yourself. It is this power of making stories written on a page live in one's memory as if they were real that truly distinghuishes Eva McCall's writing style. Edge of Heaven is an excitingly delightful book and with its vivid protrayals and descriptions, it would make a great movie.

Lucy Davenport's life has never been easy since the death of her mother. She and her father live in the foothills of the Georgia mountains and the sudden visit of Holman Carpenter is a welcomed diversion, until Lucy realizes she is bartered to be Holmans' wife. Actually, the new Mrs. Carpenter is to take over the care of the 13 Carpenter children...some who don't want a new mother. Uncertain of her abilities to manage such a brood, and with her new husband leaving her alone with the children while he tends to work, Lucy faces a whole new life in North Carolina. Eva McCall has based this first novel on the stories she heard of her own grandmother's experiences in the late 1890's. The balance of life was often challenged by illness, ignorance, poverty and the lawlessness that could exist. As Lucy comes to know the children she is to call her own (if she chooses to stay) she learns to appreciate the upbringing she had with her parents and discover her own strengths. Some may say it does not take a realistic look at the harsh times and the realities, it is a well told story of pioneer life. Captured is the compelling story of family loyalty and triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds. I hope this story continues.

As I look at a Grandma Moses painting & call it primitive so, after reading this romantic, scary & inspirational little book, do I call Edge of Heaven primitive. Eva McCall has taken her grandmother's stories & sewn them together in a simple & dramatic patchwork that reads well once your ear adjusts to the dialects & history. A gem of a portrait of life in the Great Smoky Mountains during the 1890s. Do check out my full review & eInterview with the author at [my website].

"Don't aim on pleasing no man!" These words are a challenge and when Lucy Davenport issued a challenge, no-o-o-o body wanted to be on the receiving end! Who is Lucy Davenport? Lucy is the heroine in the book, Edge of Heaven. Edge of Heaven is a chronicle of how one woman knitted the fabric of family around a lonely widower and his 13 children. With that many children to care for, ranging in age from 15 years down to 6 months, she didn't have much time to worry about "pleasing no man." The cooking alone was a full time job! Lucy had been cooking for just her "Pa" and herself and considered herself a pretty good cook. However, her first experience with the 13 "younguns" was a complete disaster since she had no idea how much bacon it would take to feed that many mouths. Being the independent, free spirited woman she was, she simply fried up the whole side of bacon. (A "side" of bacon is a little bit more than a pound - more like half the hog!) Being step-mother to 13 children is a lot like that game at Chuck-E-Cheese, Whac-a-mal. You know, the one where you, the player, are trying to keep all the little characters in their respective holes. You have a big hammer and you wham away at the board, but as sure as you get one beaten into submission, UP bops another one. You know there has to be a key! After all it is a computerized game, and if you can just find the right combination, you can win the game. Most of us just get disgusted and walk away. Lucy's plight was much worse. After all, these were real live human beings she was working with and finding that "key" was essential not only for their happiness. In the 19th century North Carolina mountains, their very survival depended on it. Originally, Lucy planned on walking away. Her mother's family was Cherokee, and the reservation was her one hope of rescue. She was in a household where she didn't want to be, with people who didn't want her to be there, in a land that was less than hospitable. In this book, somewhere between the midnight wakes for neighbors who died under suspicious circumstances, learning to read, nursing typhoid patients, burying the victims, fighting off raging panthers and saving the life of the man she married, Lucy finds her place. That's a lot to happen in only 247 pages. Who else is Lucy? The book dedication reads simply "In memory of Lucy Davenport Carpenter." Lucy is the author's grandmother, and many of the incidents in the book are stories heard as a child by Eva Carpenter McCall. While this is not an actual depiction of events as they happened, the tales of panthers scratching on the roof and ghosts that prowled the mountains were frequently Eva's bedtime stories. After Eva was tucked up in bed, her Granny Carpenter would talk about Tate City, Georgia (current population 37), and walking to church, and picnics on the back side of Standing Indian (the tallest mountain in North Carolina west of Mount Mitchell). Her stories were speckled with enough "painters" and "rattlers" and "haints" to scare even the likes of Steven King. Let me translate: "painters" are panthers - the cats not the football player. Rattlers are rattlesnakes, which can get to be rather large in the mountains. "Haints" are ghosts -but scarier! Lucy is all of us who have become "instant" families. She is every woman who has vowed "Don't aim on pleasing no man." She teaches us that the "Edge of Heaven" is a place we can carry with us. Where ever we go!

I was born and raised in Franklin, North Carolina and know all the surrounding areas very well, so this was a lot of fun for me to read. I do agree, however, with the reviewer from California that it is a bit simplistic and the conversations seem stilted. Other than that, I enjoyed this book and will read others by this author.