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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better Than Cold Mountain, June 30, 2004
This first novel is a haunting gem of writer's art. It literally pulsates from the realness of the people it brings to life. "Some people is born at the start of a long hard row to hoe," the feisty heroine, Arty Norton says, "... and it seems to me that right from the git-go, Larkin Stanton had the longest and hardest row I've ever seen." Growing up together in the shadow of Lonesome Mountain, in North Carolina, two boys are inseparable companions. As they mature, they find themselves at odds when the Civil War rips the fabric of their isolated community and they both fall in love with Mary, a redhead beauty who "smells like strawberries." Like the ballads interspersed throughout the book to express emotions the characters find too intense to speak in words, the novel embodies the passion, violence, betrayal and tragic lyricism typical of mountain tales. The characters speak in a dialect that is music itself--lilting, full of metaphors, an old-fashioned sidewise approach to conversation that makes today's in-your-face directness seem coarse. I'm sorry this book ended. I could have read it forever.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A riveting, uplifting story with the ring of authenticity!, May 24, 2004
By A Customer
Folks, this is a great book! As a professor of English and the facilitator of a book group for 12 years, I can recommend this book very highly. It is full of wisdom, it is about a North Carolina family just before and after the Civil War, and the characters that you will meet and the warm, down-home wisdom will stay with you. (...) You won't regret reading this one!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lightening Strike Ending Is a Total Surprise!, September 15, 2005
Sheila Ray Adams writes a thoroughly enjoyable novel using the voice, eyes and ears of Arty Norton, the mother of ten children living in the mid- to late 1800s around the time of the Civil War. She captures the honesty, simplicity and beauty of the Appalachian lifestyle. Based very loosely on the loves and lives of two of her male ancestors who lived in North Carolina and fought during the Civil War, she describes their close relationship and the complex emotions which ran deep during the unfolding of their interwoven lives. Arty tells us how some people have a longer and harder row to hoe in life than others and that is just how it is. She tells how Larkin Stanton was born, just before his mother died in childbirth and how he and Hackley Norton, his cousin, of age 4 or 5 years, became inseparable best friends throughout their lives ... even as they both woooed the same beautiful red-haired, freckle faced girl ... whom eventually one of them courted and married.
The reader is drawn to the cycles of time, community and social relations ... as it is lived in the mountains of North Carolina. The author includes her love of music and ballads throughout the novel in a highly creative manner. The ballads date back to the 1700s when immigrants from the British isles first settled the Appalachian Mountains. She occasionally includes lyrics to songs, using all the verses to dramatize the plot and story in a very effective manner. There is a nostalgic longing in this reader to live the more simple but physically harsh life described in this novel. The author gradually reveals the complex and deep emotions of the main characters. Her descriptions of mountain romance is highly engaging. As the multi-layered lives of the characters are presented, the apparent outward simplicity of events is shown in different hues of color, like the visual effects of a hand-sewn quilt. The patterns become more evident the longer the eyes read the book. There is one square pattern in the piece that stands out from the rest, almost shocking in its color and boldness. The reader is lulled into the cyles and patterns of life, until the Civil War changes everything. Reading this novel is like walking through a gallery of artwork, where one recognizes the era and style of brushstrokes but then ... one very unusual painting is striking in its contrast. In this novel, the ending is a huge bolt of lightening, unexpected in its impact ... yet ... in retrospect ... one should have seen it coming. Reading this book will be a pleasure for anyone interested in the Civil War era.
Erika Borsos (erikab93)
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