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Folksinger Lark McCourry is haunted by the memory of a song. As a child she heard it from her relatives in the North Carolina mountains, and she knows that the song has been in her family since 1759, when her ancestor, nine-year-old Malcolm MacQuarry, kidnapped from the Scottish island of Islay, learned it aboard an English ship. The song accompanied young Malcolm when he made his way to Morristown, New Jersey, where he apprenticed with an attorney, became a lawyer himself, and fought in the American Revolution. The song came with Malcolm in 1790, when he left his family and traveled the Wilderness Road to homestead in western North Carolina, where he remarried and raised a second family. The song, passed down through the generations, carries Malcolm's descendants through the settling of the frontier, the Civil War, the coming of the railroads, and into modern times, providing both solace in the present and a link to the past. Over the years, though, the memory of the old song has dimmed and Lark McCourry's only hope of preserving her family legacy lies in mountain wise-woman Nora Bonesteel, who talks to both the living and the dead.… (más)
As usual with Sharyn McCrumb's Applachian novels, an ancient song is at the heart of this story. Lark McCourry, a famous folksinger who has left the mountains and her difficult relationship with her father behind, takes a notion that there was a song she heard sung as a child that would be quite perfect for her next album...a song she does not fully remember, and which she thinks she might introduce to the world. In order to track the song down, and reluctantly to visit her dying father, she plans a trip back home. There are multiple stories intertwined in this novel, as it follows generations of Lark's family, and that elusive song, through the centuries from the time her ancestor Malcolm was kidnapped from a Hebrides beach at the age of 10 and pressed into service at sea in the 18th century, through the American Revolution, and the Civil War, to the recent past. Every time I put the book down I was amazed at how much Story was contained in the relatively short segment I had finished. It's a compressed generational saga that doesn't feel rushed or hurried, a sprawling historical novel that's somehow perfectly told in under 300 pages. I am in awe of the amount of research that goes into all of McCrumb's novels, but here she has outdone herself, and it all fits seamlessly into the narrative without ever feeling like a lesson. (In an author's note she explains how much of this story is based on her own family history, and also how she learned some of the historical details included in it--for instance, she found someone who could teach her how to load and fire a Springfield muzzle-loader such as her Civil War ancestor would have used. "That experience gave me an entirely new perspective on war.' I'll bet it did.) Naturally, Sheriff Arrowood and Nora Bonesteel play significant roles in the modern framework of the story, and Deputy Joe LeDonne has some interesting experiences that help him put his own past to rest. I don't often give this type of work 5 stars, but this one deserves every one of them. ( )
It has been a few years since I read one of the Ballad mysteries; I had forgotten how complicated her stories could be -- or maybe this one was more so than usual. Partly based on McCrumb's own family history, the story line follows one family from the 1700's with a chapter from each generation interspersed with modern day chapters involving some of her usual characters, Nora Bonesteel et al. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
The Rowan Stave
Upon the hill above the kirk at moon rise she did stand To tend her sheep that Samhain ever, with rowan stave in hand. And where she'd been what what she'd seen, no living soul may know. And when she's come back home, she will be changed - oh!
First stanza of 5
Dedicatoria
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For My Friends of Song
Betty Smith Sweetwater (Shelly Stevens, Shari wolf & Cindy Funk) Jack Hinshelwood
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
The old man in the lawn chair had visitors already.
Citas
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
And in the darkened backroom at Dent's Cafe, Spencer Arrowood sang.
Folksinger Lark McCourry is haunted by the memory of a song. As a child she heard it from her relatives in the North Carolina mountains, and she knows that the song has been in her family since 1759, when her ancestor, nine-year-old Malcolm MacQuarry, kidnapped from the Scottish island of Islay, learned it aboard an English ship. The song accompanied young Malcolm when he made his way to Morristown, New Jersey, where he apprenticed with an attorney, became a lawyer himself, and fought in the American Revolution. The song came with Malcolm in 1790, when he left his family and traveled the Wilderness Road to homestead in western North Carolina, where he remarried and raised a second family. The song, passed down through the generations, carries Malcolm's descendants through the settling of the frontier, the Civil War, the coming of the railroads, and into modern times, providing both solace in the present and a link to the past. Over the years, though, the memory of the old song has dimmed and Lark McCourry's only hope of preserving her family legacy lies in mountain wise-woman Nora Bonesteel, who talks to both the living and the dead.
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plot includes lyrics to Appalachian ballad
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