The Road from Gap Creek

July 1, 2013
Robert Morgan returns to his bestselling Gap Creek characters, the Richards family, as well as the Peace family from his earlier Appalachian story, The Truest Pleasure. Annie, the daughter of Gap Creek’s Julie and Hank, is married to Muir Peace, but her younger brother Troy and his dog, Old Pat, are closest to her affections. In Morgan’s world, nothing loved the way Troy and Old Pat are loved can escape tragedy for long, but the pair possesses an intelligence and curiosity that captivate; art, ambition and healing enter the Richards house through their bond. While Troy’s work produces admiration and opportunity, Muir’s work often leads to humiliation; he lays the foundation for an ill-fated stone church on a mountaintop that mirrors his dream of becoming a preacher. As in Gap Creek, Morgan reserves his harshest blows for Julie; after her brutal early years she has forced some beauty and satisfaction into her home, but more bitter loss is in store for her. Annie is granted a kinder fate; as she agrees to marry Muir, she says: “I saw how hard it would be, and I didn’t care,” and in the end, Annie’s own road grows smoother.

September 15, 2013

Following the best-selling Gap Creek, an Oprah Book Club Selection that traces the early marriage of Julie and Hank Richards, Morgan writes a sequel that continues the story of the couple and their four children. Through daughter Annie's narrative, we learn of the effects of war as well as the far-reaching ramifications of the Great Depression. The novel begins with the death of son Troy during World War II and flows through time to describe the family's experiences in the Appalachian South. The seemingly insignificant events, such as the mad dog that attempts to attack Annie or the presence of the short-tempered Albert, make the story and characters real to the readers, and key climactic moments also contribute to the novel's authenticity. While the language is effortless, Morgan's occasional poeticism is refreshing: "I reckon a woman knows she's in love when she keeps loving a man she don't want to love." VERDICT Similar to Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons, this title will appeal to lovers of Southern and Appalachian fiction.--Ashanti White, Yelm, WA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 15, 2013
Morgan (Brave Enemies, 2003, etc.) returns to western North Carolina and the Richards family saga. Deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, along the Green River, under Mt. Cicero, Hank and Julie Richards move their family from Gap Creek to a small, hardscrabble farm. There, they endure the Great Depression and World War II, stoically facing death and disease, hope and triumph. It's Annie, their younger daughter, who narrates, harking back to the family's trek from Gap Creek to Green River, road "froze as stiff as chalk," and ending her story as a grown woman birthing a daughter, realizing "having your own baby makes you feel connected...taking part in the future and with the people that come before you." Recreating the rural mountain South not yet 100-years past, Annie tells of Old Pat, a purebred German shepherd given to her brother, Troy, as payment for summer work. She offers stories of Muir and Moody Powell, twins from a nearby farm, one ambitious to preach, the other preferring to gamble and run moonshine. She remembers tramps and hobos, Julie offering at least fresh milk and cornbread even if cupboards were bare. The novel begins in 1943 with Troy's death, a casualty in a bomber crash in England. Julie's shattered, "sealed up her thoughts and grief inside her and she wouldn't let any of us touch it." But even the dead live in the soulful narrative. Troy, gentle, artistic, is home on leave and must put down Old Pat after she's horribly maimed by a firecracker. A tortured misfit stands in church to claim Troy's death is God's retribution, and the family sits silently. A troubled veteran, the new husband of Troy's former fiancee, drags her away from Troy's post-war burial at gunpoint. Morgan pens an eloquent story of stoicism and pain, endurance and courage, ending as all life will, with death and birth. A moving, lyrical saga from a time so distant, yet so near.

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