Helpful Score: 3
A beautiful story about Appalachia and the strong mountain women who live there. They prevail in the face of natural disaster, life's tragedies, and cultural difficulties. Julie Harmon exhibits strength and grace as she embarks on her first year of marriage.
Helpful Score: 3
I loved this lyrical novel about a memorable young woman as she and her new husband start their married life in a small Appalachian community at the tail end of the 19th Century.
Julie Richards is physically and spiritually strong, hard-working and loving, and completely without pretensions or self-pity as she moves from her parents' rural mountain cabin and into Mr Pendergast's small farm in even more remote Gap Creek with her new husband, Hank. During the year Hank and Julie steadfastly care for the farm and each other, Julie describes the privations they face and the gifts they receive from Nature and neighbors.
This book felt so real, as if Morgan was writing about someone in his own family -- perhaps his grandmother or great-grandmother. I highly recommend it and will remember it, and Julie, for a long time
Julie Richards is physically and spiritually strong, hard-working and loving, and completely without pretensions or self-pity as she moves from her parents' rural mountain cabin and into Mr Pendergast's small farm in even more remote Gap Creek with her new husband, Hank. During the year Hank and Julie steadfastly care for the farm and each other, Julie describes the privations they face and the gifts they receive from Nature and neighbors.
This book felt so real, as if Morgan was writing about someone in his own family -- perhaps his grandmother or great-grandmother. I highly recommend it and will remember it, and Julie, for a long time
Helpful Score: 3
One Of my Favorite Books .. I think you have to be a True Southerner to Understand How Good this Book is ..
Helpful Score: 2
I did not like this book so much. I got it because I loved most of the Oprah's book club selections. But this one was not so great. It took a great effort for me to finish reading it.
Helpful Score: 2
In other reviews I've read, people loved this book. I hate to be the devil's advocate, but I did not like it very much. I found that it dragged and I hit a point where I just wanted it to end. Yes, her life was tough and she faced many challenges. It may have been the writing. Or, it may have just been me.
Helpful Score: 2
I really enjoyed this book, even though it's a tough story. Morgan writes about real people. My folks grew up like this, I guess that's why his writting appeals to me.
Helpful Score: 1
Really liked this story -- poignant and stark.
Helpful Score: 1
I love this book. The first sad part about the worms drew me in and I could not put it down.
Helpful Score: 1
Good Story.
Helpful Score: 1
SO boring!! If this is marriage, let me please never be subjected to it!! LOL
Helpful Score: 1
I found this to be a quick, easy read. The scenery of the book is interesting, but the characters fell short and seemed flat. I'm not sure I would recommend it.
Helpful Score: 1
I enjoyed this book.
Helpful Score: 1
good, easy read.
Helpful Score: 1
Did not like this book, had to read the description to remember book which is not a good sign to me. A (rare) disappointing Oprah book.
Helpful Score: 1
I adore this book - one of my all time favorites!
I was not sure I would like this book but once I picked it up, it was something that I just could not put down. I will look for more book by this author read more by this author
This book was filled with interesting details of a difficult life in the mountains at the turn of the century. I was a bit dissapointed in the end, it left me expecting more. I'd love a sequel!
Seventeen-year-old Julie Harmon is no stranger to hard manual labor, especially after the death of her father, leaving her the main support for her mother and sisters in their remote mountain home. So when Hank asks her to marry him, she thinks any life they build together will be easy by comparison.
Within weeks, Julie learns just how much hardship the two will have to face in order to make it day to day. Deaths, natural disasters and mean-spirited opportunists combine in such formidable force that the young couple is almost beaten before they've started.
In times like these, Julie and Hank often wonder what it's all worth...but with time, they learn just how much they do need and love one another, and the fledgling life together they're nourishing.
Within weeks, Julie learns just how much hardship the two will have to face in order to make it day to day. Deaths, natural disasters and mean-spirited opportunists combine in such formidable force that the young couple is almost beaten before they've started.
In times like these, Julie and Hank often wonder what it's all worth...but with time, they learn just how much they do need and love one another, and the fledgling life together they're nourishing.
I really loved this book. It was excellently written and the characters came alive. Very reminiscent of Cold Mountain, another great!
The vived world of the Appalachian high county,in the last years of the nineteenth century.Scratching out a life,always at risk of losing it all.
oprah's book club. a book about marriage and survival. follow-up to 'the truest pleasure'.
Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2000:
Summary/Editorial Review:
Robert Morgan's Gap Creek opens with one wrenching death and ends with another. In between, this novel of turn-of-the-century Appalachian life works in fire, flood, swindlers, sickness, and starvation--a truly biblical assortment of plagues, all visited on the sturdy shoulders of 17-year-old Julie Harmon. "Human life don't mean a thing in this world," she concludes. And who could blame her? "People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn't mean a thing.... The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business." For Julie, that business is hard physical labor. Fortunately, she's fully capable of working "like a man"--splitting and hauling wood, butchering hogs, rendering lard, planting crops, and taking care of the stock. Even when Julie meets and marries handsome young Hank Richards, there's no happily-ever-after in store. Nothing comes easy in Julie Harmon's world, and their first year together is no exception.
Throughout the novel, Morgan chronicles Julie's trials in prose of great dignity and clarity, capturing the rhythms of North Carolina speech by using only the subtlest of inflections. Clearly the author has done his research too--the descriptions of physical labor practically leap off the page. (Suffice to say, you'll learn far more about hog slaughtering than you ever dreamed of knowing.) Yet he resists the temptation to make his long-suffering characters into saints. Julie simmers with resentment at being her family's workhorse, and Hank flies into a helpless rage whenever he feels that his authority is questioned. In novels like The Truest Pleasure and The Hinterlands, Morgan proved his ability to create memorable heroines. In Gap Creek, he writes with great feeling--but not a touch of sentimentality--about a life Julie aptly calls "both simple and hard."
Summary/Editorial Review:
Robert Morgan's Gap Creek opens with one wrenching death and ends with another. In between, this novel of turn-of-the-century Appalachian life works in fire, flood, swindlers, sickness, and starvation--a truly biblical assortment of plagues, all visited on the sturdy shoulders of 17-year-old Julie Harmon. "Human life don't mean a thing in this world," she concludes. And who could blame her? "People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn't mean a thing.... The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business." For Julie, that business is hard physical labor. Fortunately, she's fully capable of working "like a man"--splitting and hauling wood, butchering hogs, rendering lard, planting crops, and taking care of the stock. Even when Julie meets and marries handsome young Hank Richards, there's no happily-ever-after in store. Nothing comes easy in Julie Harmon's world, and their first year together is no exception.
Throughout the novel, Morgan chronicles Julie's trials in prose of great dignity and clarity, capturing the rhythms of North Carolina speech by using only the subtlest of inflections. Clearly the author has done his research too--the descriptions of physical labor practically leap off the page. (Suffice to say, you'll learn far more about hog slaughtering than you ever dreamed of knowing.) Yet he resists the temptation to make his long-suffering characters into saints. Julie simmers with resentment at being her family's workhorse, and Hank flies into a helpless rage whenever he feels that his authority is questioned. In novels like The Truest Pleasure and The Hinterlands, Morgan proved his ability to create memorable heroines. In Gap Creek, he writes with great feeling--but not a touch of sentimentality--about a life Julie aptly calls "both simple and hard."
Enjoyed this very much & learned a lot of details about difficult farm work.
sub-title: The Story of a Marriage
Stark, gritty, powerful story of a strong, resilient mountain woman, her marriage, her courageous and beautiful struggles with natural disasters, tragedies, and life.
(Oprah's Book Club selection)
Stark, gritty, powerful story of a strong, resilient mountain woman, her marriage, her courageous and beautiful struggles with natural disasters, tragedies, and life.
(Oprah's Book Club selection)
Kind of reminded me of Little House on the Prairie
I liked this book. Set back in the "buggy" days.
My friends loved it, i couldnt' get past the first few chapters... too slow.
Excellent!
Wonderful story of a woman's life from another time. Oprah book club choice.
makes you feel you know these people living in rural america.
the story of a young couple's hardships in the turn-of-the-century Appalachians
i really enjoyed this book and have read it at least twice
Oprah's Book Club selection. Rave reviews from Doris Betts to Fred Chappell.
I enjoying reading books in Oprah's book club!
One of the best books I've ever read! What a moving story about a young woman at the turn of the century in the South and her coming of age, her marriage and difficult struggles being poor, married to a rather strange man, and being alone without her family near.
