Michael
A Land More Kind than Home is a novel in which a brother (named Christoper but called Stump by everyone other than his mother) snoops and sees something that sets in motion a tragedy.
The novel has three POVs: Christopher’s younger brother Jess, the elderly midwife/healer Adelaide Lyle, and the sheriff Clem Barefield. Other important characters are Ben and Julie Hall, Stump and Jess’s parents, Jimmy Hall, Jess’s grandfather, and looming over everything, Carson Chambliss the con man/criminal/preacher of one of the church’s in town. The novel deals with good and evil, right and wrong, and what fathers pass down to sons.
It takes place in Madison County, NC, outside of the small town of Marshall, the county seat. I lived in Asheville, NC for a number of years, just south of Madison county, and worked in Mars Hill, NC, another small town in Madison county. I knew people from the small settlements in Appalachians, and I’ve visited Marshall a number of times, so the novel was weirdly familiar. The novel is written as if someone from the mountains was telling a story, so it was winding and there was a lot of backstory. At first this structure bothered me, but as I settled into it, I began to like it. The dialog bothered me at times—I never heard anyone use “ain’t” as much as these characters did, but then Wiley Cash is from western NC, so he should know. Maybe because I was so obviously a city boy, people were on their best behavior!
The novel ends on a dark note, which fits with the story as a whole and the general atmosphere of the novel. It seems to me that it does trade in some Appalachian stereotypes, but I was able to put these aside after awhile.
Is there a note of hope in the ending? Some people see one, but I did not. An entertaining, fast read. Maybe it is not great literature, but I’m am certainly glad I read it.
A Land More Kind than Home is a novel in which a brother (named Christoper but called Stump by everyone other than his mother) snoops and sees something that sets in motion a tragedy.
The novel has three POVs: Christopher’s younger brother Jess, the elderly midwife/healer Adelaide Lyle, and the sheriff Clem Barefield. Other important characters are Ben and Julie Hall, Stump and Jess’s parents, Jimmy Hall, Jess’s grandfather, and looming over everything, Carson Chambliss the con man/criminal/preacher of one of the church’s in town. The novel deals with good and evil, right and wrong, and what fathers pass down to sons.
It takes place in Madison County, NC, outside of the small town of Marshall, the county seat. I lived in Asheville, NC for a number of years, just south of Madison county, and worked in Mars Hill, NC, another small town in Madison county. I knew people from the small settlements in Appalachians, and I’ve visited Marshall a number of times, so the novel was weirdly familiar. The novel is written as if someone from the mountains was telling a story, so it was winding and there was a lot of backstory. At first this structure bothered me, but as I settled into it, I began to like it. The dialog bothered me at times—I never heard anyone use “ain’t” as much as these characters did, but then Wiley Cash is from western NC, so he should know. Maybe because I was so obviously a city boy, people were on their best behavior!
The novel ends on a dark note, which fits with the story as a whole and the general atmosphere of the novel. It seems to me that it does trade in some Appalachian stereotypes, but I was able to put these aside after awhile.
Is there a note of hope in the ending? Some people see one, but I did not. An entertaining, fast read. Maybe it is not great literature, but I’m am certainly glad I read it.