My Old True Love [Hardcover]

Sheila Kay Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2004

Sheila Kay Adams brings us a novel inspired by the ballads of the English, Scottish, and Irish. These long, sad stories of heartbreak and betrayal, violence and love, have been sung for generations by the descendents of those who settled the Appalachian mountains in the 1700s. As they raised their children, they taught them first to sing, for the songs told the children everything they needed to know about life.

So it was with the Stanton family living in Marshall, North Carolina, during the 1800s. Even Larkin Stanton, just a baby when his parents die and he's taken in by his cousin Arty, starts humming before he starts talking. As he grows up, he hungrily learns every song he can, and goes head-to-head with his cousin Hackley for the best voice, and, of course, the best attentions of the women. It's not long before the two boys find themselves pursuing the affections of the same lovely girl, Mary, who eventually chooses Hackley for her husband.

But, just as in the most tragic ballads, there is no stowing away of emotions. And when Hackley leaves his wife under his cousin's care in the midst of the Civil War, Larkin finds himself drawn back to the woman who's held his heart for years. What he does about that love defies all his learning of family and loyalty and reminds us that those mournful ballads didn't just come from the imagination, but from the imperfections of the heart.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“As passionate and eventful as an Irish ballad.”
–The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“I laughed, I cried. I felt everything I remember feeling as a child.”
–Dolly Parton

“Sheila Kay Adams can write the bark off a tree. . . . [Her] intimacy with mountain culture ranks with that of Lee Smith.”
–The Roanoke Times

“Deeply satisfying storytelling propelled by the desires of full-bodied, prickly characters set against a landscape rendered in all its beauty and harshness.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“Adams can make you laugh. And she can make you clear your throat and wipe at the corners of your eyes from emotion. This is no small thing. She has the gift.”
–Chattanooga Times Free Press --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Sheila Kay Adams is an acclaimed performer of Appalachian ballads passed down for seven generations through her own ancestors. She has been a featured performer in several documentary films, served as Technical Director for the film Songcatcher, contributed to The Last of the Mohicans, and was cohost and coproducer of Public Radio's Over Home. She performs year-round at major festivals throughout the United States, as well as in the U.K. She has three children and lives with her husband, Jim Taylor, in Madison County, North Carolina, where she was born.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; aFirst Edition First Printing edition (January 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565124073
• ISBN-13: 978-1565124073
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,241,217 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Cold Mountain, June 30, 2004

By 

Francesca Terry (Asheville, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Old True Love (Hardcover)

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.

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

This review is from: My Old True Love (Hardcover)

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!

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

By 

Erika Borsos "pepper flower" (Gulf Coast of FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: My Old True Love (Hardcover)

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)