Customer Reviews

Ghost Riders (Ballad Series)

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4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
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Sharyn McCrumb's "Ghost Riders" is an account of the Civil War that is usually left out of the movies and the epic sagas of the war. This is the war in the southern mountains, where the conflict was personal, the atrocities were shocking, and the resentments lasted for generations.
Using the device of magic realism in a style reminiscent of Garcia Marquez or of Nichols' "Milagro Beanfield War", McCrumb symbolizes the unresolved issues of the war with supernatural "Ghost Riders", restless spirits of dead soldiers who still ride the hills to remind the living that "wars are easier to start than they are to stop." The true stories of moutain governor Zeb Vance and woman soldier Malinda Blalock bring the past to life in memorable fashion, and with a fascinating twist: usually in war novels, the women tell of the sacrifices made by civilians on the home front, while the male characters describe what it was like to be shot at and suffer hardships in the wilderness. In "Ghost Riders" it is the other way around! Union bushwhacker Malinda is out hiding in caves and seeing combat, while Zeb is in the governor's mansion, enduring the privations of the war at home.
"Ghost Riders" is an enthralling story, but its message and the evocative writing are the elements that make it not just a war story but a literary achievement.

With each book in the Appalachian folk series, McCrumb has moved closer and closer to history and has integrated more and more characters with the Sight, as well as the object of their Sightings. In my opinion, Rosewood Casket was a flawless balance, with each character rendered three-dimensionally and the supernatural touches deft and light. Frankie Silver and Songcatcher were close.

I wouldn't miss anything by McCrumb, but here I get the feeling she was pushing herself to a new level and at the same time covering some of the same ground. Because she sets the scene in the same place as earlier novels, we meet the old familiar characters, such as Nora Bonesteel and Spencer Arrowood. In Ghost Riders they make cameo appearances, almost dropping in to say hello to their old friends, the readers.

And the Ghost Riders are not at all subtle. They're seen by those who have the Sight and by those who are close to dying. I didn't get a sense that they were dangerous or even particularly scary. Nora Bonesteel's visions were tame compared to what went before.

And, for the first time in McCrumb's books, the historical scenes become more vivid than the present. We get a sense of the complexity of the Civil War and the ironies of who fought where.

McCrumb delivers another success -- well worth picking up and reading, though not quite as deep, and definitely not as lyrical as some of its predecessors. And I am already awaiting the author's next book...will she continue with the ballads or give us another chapter of the McPhersons?
Either way, I'm ready!

Sharyn McCrumb's latest Ballad novel, "Ghost Riders," introduces several Civil War-era spirits who aren't quite ready to give up the fight. The story links historical unrest of the region with the lives of modern-day mountain settlers. As usual with McCrumb's work, the book contains a great deal of well-researched local mountain history delivered in a strong and interesting narrative.
The book incorporates real historical figures such as former North Carolina Gov. Zebulon Vance and the discorporate spirits of the "ghost riders" of the title. The Civil War comes alive in both not only its inglorious past but in its modern reenactment by thousands of hobbyist historians.
McCrumb's ancestors settled in the Smoky Mountains in the 1790s and her great-grandfathers were among the region's early circuit preachers. McCrumb still has that "preachering" in her blood, though her sermons are delivered with wit, charm, and great doses of delight.
Though her themes are broad in scope, the reader happily travels several different trails and time lines to end up in one location. From the slopes of Grandfather Mountain to the summer home of a misplaced Floridian, McCrumb paints a true picture of an Appalachian mountain region that has never had a single identity but rather harbores a large collection of individual identities.
Unlike many writers who find a winning groove, McCrumb has consistently improved as a writer over her career and continues to challenge herself with intense research and complex plots. Also unlike some writers who manage to "improve," she doesn't outwrite the patience of her readers, remembering from her Appalachian roots that first and foremost a storyteller is obligated to tell a story. "Ghost Riders" may be the best book yet among her litany of successes.

Civil War re-enactors muster on foggy weekends to re-fight old battles between the North and the South on the mountainous border between North Carolina and Tennessee. Donning authentic uniforms from both sides and armed with muzzle loading, antique rifles, they camp out, play the old tunes and share legends and tales of a war that is still fought in the hearts and minds of modern day natives. They unwittingly conjure up the ghosts of real combatants from 140 years past who hover on horseback on the fringes of the camp.

Malinda Blalock is furious that her hotheaded husband Keith has signed on with the Confederates. Facing conscription under a recently passed law, he could either flee to Kentucky to sign on with the Union, where his sympathies lie, or enlist, go AWOL and join the Union Army when he gets into battle. Fleeing could cost him his farm, endanger his wife, and probably find him at the end of a rope, so he decides on the latter. His wife Malinda, who can shoot and ride as well as he, and not one to sit on the sidelines and knit until her husband returns, disguises herself as a boy and sets off to join him. The pair ends up as outlaws, guiding refugees through the mountain passes and helping those left behind. Not, however, without bloodshed and hardship, as they hide out in caves in the rugged Appalachian hills. Or heartbreak, as they leave behind loved ones, including their own son, in their pursuit of justice.

Zebulon Vance, a prominent Raleigh attorney with political ambitions, is equally torn in his allegiance, but is reluctantly pulled into heading up a division of Confederate soldiers. He rises to the rank of governor of North Carolina, and we see the war through his eyes, both as a militarist and as one who must try to govern a state almost evenly divided in its loyalties.

These three historical figures exemplify the rift between brothers, friends and neighbors as the war divides a nation and threatens the future of the Union. Based on historical documents, letters and speeches, McCrumb brings these and other figures from their ghostly past into sharp focus.

Only Rattler, a reclusive backwoodsman, and Nora Bonesteel, both blessed with "the sight," sense the possibly ominous presence of a band of ghostly horsemen who appear to a few unwitting bystanders during the re-enactments.

GHOST RIDERS works as an effective device to meld the past with the present, while casting light on how the South is changing with the encroachment of Northerners who have no interest or axe to grind nearly a century-and-a-half after one of the most devastating events in American history.

Sharyn McCrumb's stature as a historical novelist grows with each succeeding book. THE SONGCATCHER, which chronicles the collection of traditional Appalachian ballads, was made into a movie, and both the book and the movie drew critical acclaim. McCrumb is also well known for her humorous Elizabeth MacPherson mysteries. GHOST RIDERS accurately brings to life the sense of place and personal conflicts of the 19th and 21st centuries.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

I loved this book! Even though I'm a native Atlantan, I've never been interested in the Civil War (or The War Between The States) but I am very interested in Appalachian history. It is Sharyn McCrumb's talent that made me care about this particular chapter of the Civil War - Sharyn explained a lot about the complexities of the issues that led to the war and the people who lived through it. It's not black and white (no pun intended) and really made me think about what choices I would have made if I had lived then.

The only drawback to the book as far as I am concerned is that I wish the Ghosts had been explored more. Why are they still riding? They knew the war was over during their lifetimes. Also, the character of Tom Gentry was unnecessary in my opinion -I don't really understand why his character was needed. But, all in all, I loved this book and I highly recommend it and all other Sharyn McCrumb books. If you're at all interested in Appalachian history - she's the best!

I've been a longtime fan of McCrumb, reading almost all her books. For years I thought "She Walks These Hills" was the best. But "Ghost Riders" challenges that book's position! It's not only a wonderfully written page turner that kept me up way too late, but also gave new insight into the area's history. The Malinda character is especially well-drawn. (I grew up in, and one side of my family has lived in, the Smokies around Asheville, Tryon and Morganton for generations, and McCrumb's characters and terminology are on target. She has a great sense of place. And as a now-Floridian who often returns I know her accounts of the relationship between natives and Floridians are all too true, although a very minor part of the book. I was only sorry that it ended, and only wish there was more about her contemporary chracters. I totally and highly recommend this book.

In 1861 when it comes to joining a side in the war, people living in the Southern Appalachia believe neither side is right because someone will detest you for signing up with the wrong team. When her husband Keith signs on with the Confederacy due to the pay, Malinda Blalock cuts her hair and joins too as his younger brother Sam. They try to receive a discharge, but soon become avenging outlaws even while a mountain peer Zebulon Vance somehow becomes governor of North Carolina.

At the same time except in the year is 2003, Civil War reenactment actors in the Appalachians reenacts a violent incident from 1862 when suddenly ghosts of Confederate soldiers appear. Local residents Rattler and Nora Bonesteel try to use their special gifts to calm the angry ghosts and assist them in moving on to the next plane.

Readers who enjoy a complete package with no finality need to look elsewhere. However, those fans that appreciate a deep comparative look at generations over a century apart with the ending of each "tale" left to the imagination will value the powerful GHOST RIDERS. As expected Sharyn McCrumb provides her audience with a strong story line filled with wonderful protagonists as she displays why she is so good at bringing together contemporary and historical perspectives as few writers can do.

Harriet Klausner

In author Sharyn McCrumb's "Ghost Riders" her thematic characters of Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and cast of local West-Carolina characters may have reached then end of a happy trail. Had this book been published before "Cold Mountain" it would have been regarded as an insightful exploration of pockets of discontent within the Confederacy. Because "Ghost Riders" came out after "Cold Mountain," McCrumb's more readable book, however, must take a backseat in the originality category.

Likewise, this book lacks innovation in several of its parallel story lines. Women dressing up as men to follow their husband's to war have been recounted numerous times. Apparitions around battlefields are also old news or no news at all. Likewise, gazing up at the stars and conceptualizing that they were as thick as eggs laid on the water by a frog is reminiscent of a similar conversation between Huck and Jim in Twain's "Huck Finn."

The book's strength is in its telling of historical fact in a fictionalized fashion. Such books, like "The Killer Angels," give the average reader a continuity and connectivity to history that cannot be achieved thru history courses that dwell on, at worst, chronology and, at best, context. In this context Zebulon Vance, the wartime governor of North Carolina, is the best-portrayed character in McCrumb's book.

Some of the parallel stories could have been left out of McCrumb's book completely. Tom Gentry's journey out of the modern world and into the modern wilderness adds little to the book. The character "Rattler" is also weak and nominally provides a vehicle to interweave the other plots and players.

McCrumb's books have been valuable to me during a time of convalescence in which I eagerly read all of her "Arrowood" series. These books brought back many memories of family stories that have been passed down by my family for generations. I am disappointed in "Ghost Riders" because it simply did not have the substance and suspense of her earlier volumes. In addition, Ghost Riders came to an abrupt end with many threads left dangling, not as a mechanism to lead into the next volume, simply the trail went cold.

I love Sharyn McCrumb in general and her books are always fun, but this one was especially grand. I love the way she weaves history into the present and throws in plenty of supernatural phenomena as well. Her books always inspire me to check out the historical facts and learn a bit more about the events she writes about. The characters are realistic, the events are perfectly interwoven and the ending is never predictable. Well worth reading.

McCrumb's premise in GHOST RIDERS is that the Civil War in Appalachia never did end. In her author's note she compares it to the war in Bosnia. In order to dramatize this notion, McCrumb uses modern-day reenactors who attract the ghosts of the Civil War soldiers who died in the mountains but were unable to pass into the next world.
I ordered this book a couple of months before it was published so obviously I enjoy McCrumb's work, but I had trouble getting into this one, mainly because of the multiple viewpoints and the shifting back and forth from modern Appalachia to the 1860s. Also, as she did with Frankie Silver, McCrumb tries to fictionalize historical personages, namely Malinda "Sam" Blalock and Governor Zebulon Baird Vance (Tom Dooley even makes a cameo appearance). Blalock fought alongside her husband in the Civil War and Baird was governor of North Carolina. When she flashes back in time, Baird is the protagonist as is Blalock. In modern day Appalachia we have Sheriff Arrowood and Nora Bonesteel, as well as Rattler.
Because of these shifting viewpoints the novel never does gather any momentum. In McCrumb's earlier work, Spensor Arrowood was the center who made McCrumb's psychic elements believable. In this one he's almost a superfluous character, as is Nora Bonesteel.