Oh man, this book was really shaping up to be a four star book and then the ending. What the heck was that? If you like historical fiction and are okay with open-ended endings, this covers a less common time at the turn of the 20th century in South Carolina.

I loved this book. Following a young couples hardships was wholesome and enlightening. It got a little weird when they highlighted joining the church, but I think the author saved it with the ending. Amazing writing! Reminded me of Where the Crawdads Sing and The Color Purple but without the intense southern diction that is hard to follow for some. Would love to read another book by Robert Morgan.

make it a 3.5

A fairly easy read but I was very annoyed with Julie, she was so naive and foolish I wanted to give her a good shake, and it was just getting a bit more interesting then it ended. OK but not the best of its kind.

I thought this one started strong but ended weak. The subtitle is "The Story of a Marriage," but I don't find that accurate, since the story doesn't follow the marriage through--we only get a glimpse at the very beginnings of a marriage. I expected, based on the title, to get the whole story, and I feel a bit jipped. Also, the further along I got, the more I skimmed because I started getting bored. Overall, though, I enjoyed the story, and I think MOrgan accurately portrays the Appalachian lifestyle at the turn of the century, and I am always interested in stories that capture what life was like there then. I also appreciate the depiction of a strong female character.

I added this book to my to read list when it was recommended by a woman I met on a plane. She said it was the best book she ever read.

I listened to this book. The dialog was repetitive. The plot was depressing. I don't recommend it.

This is a story of a newly married couple who set out to make a home for themselves in the mountains of Appalachia. After reading this book I don't think I can ever complain again about having too much work to do. What the young woman of the story had to do daily just to survive, put me in my place.

I read this book years ago and loved it. I forgot the title and searched for it for years. This time, I listened via audiobook. I finished it in less than 24 hours. It's written so well and authentically depicts the grit, strength, and resilience of Applalachians and mountain folk.

This is a difficult book for me to review. It is not one I would recommend for everyone. It takes a certain appreciation for all things literary to enjoy this book; as it is certainly not for the faint of heart. The themes are depressing, even over-the-top sometimes, but rather than make one sad, it tends to elicit an appreciation for the ease and conveniences of our post-modern existence. More than anything, it evokes an empathy for the main character. It is not so much about the plot, but about the writing style for me. It is definitely associated with the realism of post-Civil War literature. The characters have difficult lives, incredible hardships, and almost infuriating personality traits, yet there are redemptive qualities as well as moments of sheer bliss derived solely from nature. The elements of naturalism are reminiscent of romanticism in that the only time Julie is at peace or finds comfort is when she is either alone or in nature.

The subtitle is deceiving, because I did not agree it was the story of a marriage, but rather a young woman's tale. The story opens before her marriage, and truthfully,her marriage is just another unfortunate event in her life that leads to further hardships. I did enjoy Morgan's writing style, and plan to read some of his other works for the sake of comparison.

“The hardest work I did on Gap Creek was trying to get the voice right,” says Robert Morgan, who has been called the poet laureate of Appalachia. The voice, as it happens, is of seventeen-year-old Julie Harmon. At seventeen, she’s a good girl, and strong, working as hard as a man alongside her father in this gritty, realistic portrayal of life in late-nineteenth-century North Carolina.

Morgan starts us off with the depiction of a horrifying illness in the very first chapter. When her younger brother dies, followed a bit later by her father, Julie becomes the head of the family, caring for her mother and sisters until a handsome boy passes through the holler. After a few weeks, she and the boy, Hank, marry and move the distance of a day’s walk to Gap Creek. Since homes are few and far between, they rent a room with a stinky, lewd and mean old widower in exchange for Julie’s serving as the maid and housekeeper. While Hank works at a distant mill, Julie cleans, cooks, tends the fields and the farm animals, splits and hauls wood and even butchers a hog, the rendering of whose fat causes disaster. Written in a voice similar to Cold Mountain, Gap Creek tells the story of a can-do kind of young woman who works so hard it hurts your back to read about it.

Morgan portrays the delicate evolution of a marriage, and of a girl trying to define her identity in relation to the union, a timeless theme for sure, but one made more nuanced by the circumstances in which Julie lives. On one level this is a love story, comparable to that of any impoverished but earnest young couple determined to carve out an existence in their world.

It’s just that their world is so Darwinian. Julie’s strength and skills are essential in a time and place where the only food you eat is what you can raise or kill yourself; the only shelter you live in is what you build or maintain alone. Medical care is a matter of family knowledge handed down for better or worse from generation to generation. Superstition carries unquestioned curative or destructive power. She and Hank live at the meanest edge of subsistence, with no electricity or running water, and just one injury, illness, or crop failure between death and survival.

Morgan use simple descriptions to transport us into Julie’s everyday world:
t“I stepped out to the back porch and looked in the yard. Like in any backyard, there was a woodshed and a smokehouse, a clothesline, a path to the toilet on the right, and a path to the spring on the left. And further out there was a barn and hogpen. The washpot was on the trail to the spring. And there was a table and a wooden tub on the trail next to the pot. I looked around the porch and found a washboard and a bucket. And by the water bucket was a cake of Octagon soap.
t“I grabbed that bucket and carried several gallons of water from the spring and poured them in the pot. And then I got some kindling and wood from the shed and started a fire under the pot…it took me four trips just to carry Mr. Pendergast’s clothes out to the wash table.”

Earnest, loyal and naïve – but not stupid – Julie isn’t daunted by the need to work like a mule. In a metaphor for her resilience, she finds solace in hard work. Hank is weak, a whiner, impulsive, with a bad temper. The two of them weather fire, flood, extortion, swindling, poverty and hunger. She is so much stronger than him, but by the end of the story he changes.

The challenges are endless, the struggle Sisyphean. She works and works, yet the problems never slow down, and her effort seemingly pointless in clawing some security from the soil. What, I wonder, was Morgan trying to tell us? He said the book is based on his grandmother, that he wanted to explore what life was like for women who worked so hard for everybody else. Examples of hard work? How about washing and dressing a dead man? Butchering a hog? In that sense the story is a portrait of self-sufficiency, and the kind of strength you don’t see so much anymore.

There is a primitive rawness to the world in which Julie lives, leaving little indication of divine intervention. In two major scenes she seems deflated by the world’s indifference, given over to an existentialist’s sad musings:
t“I sat there on the cold ground feeling that human life didn’t mean a thing in this world. People could be born and they could die, and it didn’t mean a thing…little Masenier was dead. There was nothing we could do about it, and nothing cared except Papa and me. The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business.”

When Julie “finds religion” it’s more a matter, I think, of finding community with other earnest human beings, and garnering strength from their friendship. She is helped and is grateful, and in this Morgan makes a profound yet subtle affirmation of the essential bond between human beings.

In the end, this book is about innate strength, and the courage to make a life, to enjoy carnal and spiritual love, and to battle hard luck and crushing circumstance. I found it inspiring.

Well, that was depressing... Julie has a hard life, and in this book, it only gets harder. Really. Nothing. Ever. Gets. Better.

I picked up a nice copy of this book from my library book sale for 10 cents awhile back. I decided to read it this week as my final book for the Southern Literature Challenge because it won the Southern Book Critic Circle Award.

However, it is also an Oprah book. Next time I pick up an Oprah book, somebody please just slap me. This book is more depressing than a sunless day in January. How depressing? Read on...

***Spoilers***

Set in 1899, the book opens with 17-year old protagonist Julie Harmon describing the gruesome death of her younger brother. That's followed with the death of her father. Then she marries Hank, whom she has known for all of a few days. They move down from the mountains of North Carolina to the Appalachian valley over the border in South Carolina. Julie takes care of a nasty old widower in exchange for free rent while Hank works in town making bricks.

We get a lot of detail into their tough and rugged lives, including an in-depth look into the slaughtering of a hog. Julie burns down the kitchen, the widower dies, they are swindled out of every dime they own, Hank smacks Julie around and loses his job, they loose what little they have left in a flood, Julie gives birth to a premature baby that subsequently dies, and then they get tossed out of the house.

And that's the end.

I'm only giving it two stars instead of one because I liked this passage:

The good Lord made the world so we could earn our joy, Ma said. But it's no guarantee we'll ever be happy.

I agree with the concept that we have to work hard to earn joy and happiness in life. And sometimes I think happiness is a decision. However, I know that life can be difficult and even brutal. I just would have appreciated a little more sunshine in this book.