She did an excellent job describing the challenges of early mountain people. ( )

When I was growing up, all family history was oral. My Daddy would tell tales of his Uncle Bunny, a man who had been dead twenty years before I was born, and bring him to life, so that he felt like a presence still there. This is what Lee Smith does so perfectly in her novels--she reaches into the past, plucks out fascinating characters, and brings them completely to life.

In Oral History, a young college student goes to the mountains of Virginia to research her family ancestry, and we are treated to their real stories, seen through the eyes of others who witnessed their lives unfold. The mountain setting of Hoot Owl Holler is as much a character as the people. It is nestled between three mountains, and it influences events by walling people in or setting them free. The very handsome Almarine Cantrell begins this story and three generations of Cantrells then weave a tale of fate and adversity that makes the legend of a curse seem more possible than not.

Smith has a rare command of the language of the mountains, and she presents her characters without condescending to them, another rarity. She knows the music and the old-time remedies, and she uses the expressions that peppered a Southern childhood and have now almost passed out of existence. Who doesn’t like a little mystery and some backwoods superstitions? She speaks of people who believe in witches and curses and makes you wonder if they are crazy or just more sensitive to another dimension than we are.

Three years of summers coming and going, and snow on the ground in the cold, and I’m still traveling my mountains but I know it in my heart I’m slowing down. I can tell how I’m getting old. Some days I’ll set by my fire all day, and think back on things that was, and them things is ever as clear to me as the here and now. Some days I swear I can’t tell no difference between them, and I tell you, I don’t give a damn.

I love Lee Smith. She is the genuine article. This book does not rival Fair and Tender Ladies, but it comes close. I will continue to read her until I have exhausted her work and then, if I am granted a long enough life, I will start over again.
( )

Excellent writing and a tender portrayal of one of the most maligned of American subcultures at a time in history when things were very different and when reliance on one's family was essential. ( )

I should probably give this book five stars, because it is very well done, but the fact that I could like only one or two characters in the whole book spoiled it for me a little. I know people have their pettinesses, meannesses, etc, but I can't believe that it is mostly negative qualities that make up human character for most people. It also irked me that milk sickness is called dew pizon, which has completely different symptoms, but maybe that is a regional thing? The dialect was so close to the dialect that I grew up with here in rural northwest Florida that I found myself thinking in it after finishing the book, which is a bit of a problem as I, like Jinks, have spent rather a lot of time trying to learn to speak "properly." ( )

I found this book hard to review. The writing is good, and I enjoyed the story, for the most part, but I did not care for the portrayal of the Appalachian people. I'm married to one and am close to the whole family, and they and their ancestors lived pretty normal lives, from all accounts. The characters in this book come across as superstitious and uneducated. One scene is towards the end, in coal company housing. The housing isn't what disturbed me. It is the descriptions of filthy conditions, trash everywhere, and dirty children. While that might apply to some people, it does not apply to all. Poor does not mean dirty, trashy, or ignorant. The coal miners worked hard in horrible conditions, and their lives were hard, but not necessarily like the description here. I wish some of the stereotypical descriptions could have been left out. ( )