Well, here we are today, about to undertake a brand new adventure in a brand new book, and I must say I'm flabbergasted at this one.

I had grave (hahahah) reservations about reading MeCrumb, but those fears are allayed. Was caught up immediately in the tone of the thing, the extremely clever beginning, the three graves, the Appalacian aura, completely hooked.

I'm not through, do not have any searing overviews, have gone off completely on a tangent with the ballad form in America, particularly in the Appalacian mountain regions.

I noted (now this, I'm sure, is an aside from what we should be discussing, but the joy of a book club is the ability to say what you will, what comes to YOUR mind and hope we can all form our own final conclusions and be the richer for the experience). So I'm off on the ballad tangent for the mo.

I noted a reference to "Tom Dooley" and the scornful retort of the lawman in response. That got me to thinking about the fact that I had never heard of Frankie Silver, tho I have Frankie and Johnny. That makes me wonder WHY some ballads take fancy, why they are written and why some catch on and some don't.

For instance, I can recite here from childhood memory without recourse to any text, the ballad of Jesse James, who was, apparently in real life, not quite the "Robin Hood" that everybody thought. Here's HIS ballad:

Jesse James was a lad
Who killed many a man.
He robbed the Glendale train.
He stole from the rich
And gave to the poor
He'd a hand, and a heart, and a brain.


Poor Jesse had a wife
Who mourned for his life
Three children, they were brave.
But that dirty little coward
That shot Mr. Howard
Has laid poor Jesse in his grave.


It was on a Saturday night
Jesse was at home.
Talking with his family...........

That's all I remember. It's quite a catchy tune. Poor Jesse, brave children, loving wife, living in disguise (Mr. Howard) and killed by that DIRTY LITTLE COWARD. Hanging a picture, I believe, shot in the back.

I think I will benefit a lot from this book, apparently it's a true story, and I will enjoy learning more about this particular person, the three graves (??HAH??) and all the other bits.

What do you think of the book so far, wherever you are in it? And if you've finished, where do you think our emphasis ought to be at first?

And do you recall any old folksongs from the past?

Ginny

A bit of a slow start for me. Of course, things are such here that I'm doing "30-second reading bites", which doesn't help. Since I had ancestors who migrated from Virginia into N. Carolina thence into Tennessee, I am more inclined to get involved in the geography and history than the old ballads. Hopefully I'll get caught up in this book in a day or so.

Marge

Ginny, this is a first for me and I am not sure just how the discussion of the "Silver" book works. Do you take it by chapters or what?

I remember my mother used to sing a song with words like this"

Two little playmates, a boy and a girl. Were playing one day in the sand. They built up a house of little gray shells Not worn by the little ..... When they had finished, their work was well done And two little hearts made glad But the boy, just for fun, gave a kick and a run, And down came the house on the sand. The dear little maiden stood struck and surprised And tears to her little eyes came, I will never forgive you, she suddenly cried Oh, how could my Jack be so mean? When the young fellow saw his sweetheart in tears, He mannerly to her came, And throwing his arms around her he called, Lets kiss and make up again.

Gee, I am surprised I remembered that much. My mother died in 1975 and I doubt I have even thought of it since.

I finished Frankie several months ago but made some notes so I could contribute to this discussion. I haven't consulted those notes yet but will just say, not to tip off the ending, that the book certainly held my interest.

As for ballads, I spent five formative years in East Tennessee; remember a plaintive thing that went... "In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines..." and a whiny, bouncy thing called "Take An Old Cold Potato and Wait...". Oh yes, and there was something about "I've got tears in my ears from lying on my back and crying over you...". I'm not sure these qualify as ballads?!

Just the title reminds me of Jean Ritchie and Dulcimer music.

Well, hello, everyone,and welcome. Charles, we're so glad to see you here, just the mention of the dulcimer recalls so many images, but can you elaborate on Jean Ritchie?

As Charles has pointed out, the title is The Ballad of Frankie Silver, and it's intriguing to me for several reasons.

Jeryn, the "Cold Potato" thing has me dying with curiosity, do you remember any of the rest of it?

Marge, I'm also doing the "30 second" byte type of reading, and lots of times that does influence how we see a book. I wish I knew more about the history of the Appalacian region. I know we've touched on this before in Cold Mountain yet for me so many areas are blank.

Betty asked an excellent question, and we're delighted to see you here too, Betty! As a group without a particular discussion leader, we can take the discussion any way we'd like: chronologically through the book or thematically or whatever springs to your minds. Loved your mother's delightful poem of the two children and the sandcastle, had never heard it.

I find the opening passages of the book intriguing, and think the author has done a wonderful job piquing the reader's curiosity. McCrumb is a mystery writer, yet I note she's been cited repeatedly for her contributions to the literature of Appalacia and her revival of the old tales which have passed (as in the case of Frankie Silver) into obscurity.

There appear to be two story lines, the Silver and the Harkryder. I took immedidate offence to the "Harkryder" name for some reason, it seems hokey and made up and I bet it's a true name, but that was my first reaction.

Anyway, as far as the ballad form goes, here's some interesting things I found in Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia

"Ballad: A narrative song, originally chiefly of popular origin. Ballads fall into types according to subject and include the domestic tragedy, concerning a murder of family feud; the historical ballad, dealing with historical events; the outlaw ballad, celebrating a popular rebel against established law (ROBIN HOOD, JESSE JAMES); the Scottish coronach or lament ballad; and the folkloric ballad.

Among early ballads, coronach and historical ballads and those involving romance elements were usually composed by minstrels attached to noblemen's courts and were written with a sense of literary values and for a definite audience. The other types were popular products transmitted by oral tradition and had much charm but little artistic finish. In the U.S. , many folk ballads are survivals of variants of the old English ballads. However, there are a number of indigenous types, dealing with such subjects as occupational pursuits (CASEY JONES) ethnic groups (JOHN HENRY), various sections of the country, famous battles, and actual or legendary heroes.

English and Scottish ballads dating from the 14th to the 16th century are to be found in Percy's RELIQUES OF ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY and James Francis CHIlD'S English and Scottish Popular Ballads 1857-58) Many literary ballads have ben written by later poets poets....such as Stephen Vincent BENET'S Ballad of William Sycamore (1923)"

Of course, this book encompasses quite a few more issues than a folk song, and is unexpectedly rich meat indeed for the reader, we'll have a ball. But we have to start somewhere, and since we all started with the title, thought that would be an appropriate "stop" along the way, even if I can't get Monty Python's "Ballad of Sir Robin" out of my head!

Tell you what, this book has SO MUCH in it, let's take the first 103 pages for this week, and see what comes to mind?

For starters:

1. What do you think of the author's technique in introducing this old, and apparently true tale of a long forgotten murder? Do you think it's skillful? Did it catch you up or are you having to labor to keep on?

2. Will the narrator's point of view add to or detract from the story? Would it have been better viewed from Frankie's eyes?

3. Where is the baby? Why are the prisoners unwashed? Why did the brief scene in front of the magistrates in the "Habeas Corpus" chapter "put a rope around the neck of Frankie Silver?" (page 85)

4. Do you have any sympathy with any of the characters so far? Were you startled at Frankie's owning one bowl with three blue feathers on it which she'd like left for the baby? Did and do people actually live like that?

5. What of the customs we now see emerging? No celebration of Christmas? Do you know anyone like these people? What about Isaiah Stewart's immediate assumption that it would be the "Stewarts " vs the "Silvers," not an individual crime. Let's keep track of each nuance of mountain character as revealed.

6. What do you think of the author's slipping in her own value judgments into the piece, such as "most law abiding citizens were as fortunate as they were virtuous. Any one bit of luck--loving parents, a knack of getting good grades, enough money, a faithful spouse--could derail the kind of tragedy that happened to people less blessed." (page 88). Do you agree with this statement?

7. Does the foreshadowing and mystery of the first 100 pages mseem to indicate a well crafted book? Why are there three graves? Why dows Fate hate his brothers?

So that's a start, anyway. So good to have somebody to talk over these issues with, what issues did it raise for you, and IS "The Ballad of Frankie Silver," a real one? has anyone heard the tune?

Ginny

Some 25 years ago, John Jacob Niles, then the best known Dulcimer expert still living, though somewhat in his dotage, was performing locally. I was fortunate in seeing him in several performances, and I've always appreciated Balladry.

Some 50 years ago there was a (then) well known baratone by name of Thomas L. Thomas whom I saw doing an absolutely fantastic arrangement of "Lord Randall", which has ever since been my favorite ballad.

Of course nearly every native I know here in Kentucky claims to be related to the James boys or at least to friends of the Jameses.

Best

LJ

Ginny, the Old Curmudgeon wants to know if you originated those questions or got them from some other book or library group, and if the latter, whence? Just asking.

Bought a copy of the book, which I read some time ago, in order to be able to participate intelligently, and unfortunately these first two days of October have filled up with unexpected commitments and chores, so I'll just have to lurk for a bit.

Ros

My paternal grandmother's name was Frankie and I never could understand how any one could give that name to a little girl. It was a boy's name as far as I was concerned; and I never, unfortunately, knew my grandmother all that well.

I do remember the ballad "Frankie and Johnnie" were lovers and, lordy, how they could love. I thought, perhaps, that was the reason she was given that name or perhaps it was a popular name for girls in those days. I have the history of my father's family, but not of the women they married. If I were interested in geneology, perhaps I could uncover the origin of the name. I don't even know where she was born and she has only one child still living who is very old - hmmmm, maybe I can find out.

Does this book mention anything about the name "Frankie?"

"Frankie" is just a nickname for girls [and boys, sometimes] named Frances or Francis. "Francie" for girls has also been used as a nickname. Do I recall a "Francie" from children's literature? Penrod perhaps?

Ginny--that silly song was about a family having company, I think, and the child or person singing had to just "take an old cold potato and wait" for his supper! At least, that's the way I remember it!
Regarding your question #6 above, I believe you will find this is McCrumb's thesis or moral to the story: her parallel narrations strive to show that the poor have little or no chance under our justice system, either then [Frankie Silver] or now [Harkryder]. I've finished the book so tell me if I'm out of line making such comments too soon and I'll shut up and lurk for a while...

ROSLYN!!!!! They're THAT good? OR BAD? hahahahah, nope that's all moi, what questions do you all have, some letters saying people can't get in here so I rushed right in after grapes to see what's the problem, I see everyone here so far today is a Discussion Leader in the Books and that frightens me a little as to the availability of this folder to everyone. Can our "regular" posters not get in?

Somebody post, please!!

Back tomorrow when I have a chance to read what you all wrote, so glad to see you all here, hope to see some of my correspondents make it thru, I do think the Books and Lit is haunted by the Ghost of Access Lost.

Ginny

Jean Ritchie was (is??) an Appalachian Mountain singer, song-writer, dulcimer player. The Ballad of the title and the setting (Appalachian Mountains) immediately bring her to mind. If there is a Ballad of Frankie Silver, I'm sure she would have recorded it. I wondered about the 'rope around the neck' comment. I took it to mean that someone had to be designated to 'pay' for the crime and that the only one left now was Frankie. I've finished the first 103 pages and I find myself looking forward to the 'present' chapters at this point.

LJ: Ever hear the Buffy St. Marie version of Lord Randall? Bone chillin'.

CHARLES, Yes!!! And of course the ballad is in the Mother's voice which makes it especially appropriate for a female singer.

Best

LJ

P.S.

I'm surprised no-one else has heard John Jacob Niles. Surely I'm not the Oldest Music Lover here.

Charles got in!!

Remember the Everly Brothers? "Problems, problems, problems all day long.....Will my problems work out right or wrong?"

Well, we've got problems. Right here in Frankie City, nobody can get in except Charles, nobody can find the URL, Larry is on the case.

Thanks so much to all of you who wrote, hang in there, Larry will fix it, whatever it is. Next time I'll do the clickable from the old discussion like a normal person would.

Ginny

"Three slashes in the fountain...." I believe this is my day for song, Larry, of course, has fixed the problem, there were three slashes in the URL, so post away madly all, while we wait for the others to get in!!

Back in a mo,

Ginny

The Dollmaker, by I can't remember her name but it starts with A, was a story of the old Appalachia before WWII. The Eden phase was in the Cumberlands, the Fall from Grace phase was in Detroit war factories. Poignant. The author's sense of place was wonderful. I could smell the wildflowers, feel the leaves crunching under my feet.

I just got the book on the lst and other activities have kept me from reading much. I do wonder why there are three graves when appasrently only one person,Charlie, was killed.

I don't particularly like for a book to go off in two directions from the beginning. In the first chapter, the Sheriff receives a letter about the execution of a Harkryder inmate,and then, it darts off telling

I have to read more and will lurk,like I believe it was Ella, said she was going to do.

Have just started "Frankie Silver" and am having difficulty with the cohesiveness (or lack thereof). Maybe it's just me, but author seems to jump back and forth over time lines and characters. I am finding it very hard to stick with it.

Also, it seems as though she is trying to throw every Appalachian colloquialism she has ever heard in the first few chapters. First of all, Mountain people don't talk much at all and when they do it is very terse.

I will stick with it and hopefully it will become more interesting later on...I have read many books that take 100 pages, or so, to get in to. It must be me, as I know the author is renowned for her books on Appalachia.

Eddie...Who will keep reading, 'til she gets it!

I do agree with some of these comments. I thought when I read this book that some of the descriptions of families and lineages in the 19th century got pretty boring! Honestly, I skipped over some of that stuff. In the author's note at the end of the book, she explains this was done to help emphasize her objective of showing how the justice system had failed a girl who was poor and unconnected, socially or politically.

I still feel that all the irrelevant detail was gratuitous and that the author did NOT make her point IN THAT WAY. Perhaps she needed some padding for her novel! Better it should have just been shorter!

I hope everyone will stick with it, following these parallel narratives to their chilling conclusions.

The other day, we were discussing Frankie, Francie, etc as nicknames. I finally remembered the Francie from the past--the heroine of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith! Francine was the little girl in Penrod, I think.

Okay, as I wrote earlier, I do not like books to go from one thing to another, unless they are related. Here, we have the murder of Charlie and then we have the scheduling of the execution of Fate Harkryder in connection with the murder of Emily and her boy friend. And just ahead, I gather there is a third murder similar to the second murder.

We have the author telling the story, then we have Burgess Gaither giving his points of view, and in italics, the thoughts of Frankie Silver(s)(did that matter?)

Not that we have a clue as to where the baby is, I guess I just assume the baby is with Charlie's family. As to their not being washed, the long trip could be the reason, hey, maybe the water was frozen....the river was.

As to the accounts on page 85, since the mother and young son were not seen by anyone at the Silver cabin, they were assumed not guilty. The "thoughts" of Frankie leads one to believe she is guilty when she refuses the Bible (we know she can't read but the jailer's wife does not)and thinking that the jailer's wife thinks she is a witch, and wicked.

Perhaps the bowl was the only thing she cherished. I am sure there are some people that do not celebrate Christmas, due to the lack of knowledge or perhaps poverty. That is not likely today, but at the time frame of the book, I would think there were a lot of families living in the backwoods without knowledge of many things.

What a great beginning to our discussion, just LOOK at all the points you have raised! Bad thunderstorms here have kept me off and may push me off, but I wanted to try to be Group Recorder and put some of the points you've raised in the heading.

Several of us have commented on the narrative voice of this thing. Let's see now, we've got the Sheriff, Frankie herself, Burgess Gaither (whom I found myself detesting immediately, just a BIT too much of family, and being well born and etc., etc. Please but back to that later), and Fate, and I hate to tell you but it keeps on, there are more and more and more voices as the next hundred pages unfold, leading me to believe that it's sort of an OUR TOWN sort of book: each person will come forward to tell his own thoughts and reflections.

And then there are the parallel plots, or themes if you will, and just as I get settled in the one, "I" or "me" intervenes, and the "I" is a brand new person with all the appurtenant lineages and attendant relatives and I know that's how some people talk and think but I agree with Jeryn, it's a bit skippable.

But I think the author is doing this for a reason, so I'd like to pause and ask you, each of you, your opinion or feelings about each of the characters which have given "voice" to this narrative. Jeryn has pointed out the author's purpose at the end of the book, and I don't think in this case it's a bad thing to know at the outset, as it helps me over the endless stuff knowing she did it for a reason.

So how about each of us take each of the characters who are giving voice and say what our feelings--just our gut reactions are? I think McCrumb is manipulating our thoughts by her words so am interested in your reactions!

So so far in the first 100 pages we've identified Narrative Voice, Plot issues (too many parallel plots?) and Time issues, and I'll have more to say on that too. Just for starters, WHEN do you thik the main action, the Sherriff getting called as a witness to the execution (if that IS the main action of the book) occurs? I have a reason for asking, I believe I've caught her in an anomaly.

Ginny

Individually on some of your points:


LJ: I never heard of John Jacob Niles, will look him up on the Internet when I have two secs without thunder and see what I can bring here. Is a hammered dulcimer different from a regular dulcimer?

"Lord Randall" has always been a favorite of mine, too, can somebody find it and post it here? Would love to hear the music as we read this book.

Ella: It's strange the male appellations to women, Frankie for Frances. I once had a great aunt named Floyd. Don't ask me why? That WAS her given name.

Jeryn: No, don't shut up, we need to identify these author purposes and I'm putting yours in the heading. Just as long as we don't reveal the solution to the several mysteries posed by the author I think we need to know WHAT her purpose was, it helps. Will put it in the heading later today.

Roslyn: BOUGHT the book again to participate, that is the mark of a TRUE Clubber, tho everybody BUT me hates the term.

Charles: Thanks for the information on Jean Ritchie, wonder if there's anything of hers on the Internet.

If separating the brother and mother would automatically put a rope around Frankie's neck why did the defense allow it to happen at all?

Jeryn: I do agree, I must admit I did skip some of the endless recitals of Uncle Whatnot married to Aunt Whatever. I understand the purpose, think she overdid it. It will be inetersting to give OUR opinions on what she did there. Perhaps a little less would have made the same point.

Did anyone else notice that Mr. Gaither's mode of speech changes the farther or further you get (have never gotten those two straight) in the book? His exceedingly stilted speech at first left me hating him and his lovely wife the well born Whoever.

I bought this book, was determined to pass it on to our Book Exchange when thru but have angrily written in it to the point I may have to chunk it....

Betty: I agree, too. It's very confusing to keep switching back and forth between the two murder plots unless they are somehow related and as you say, a third appears looming. I'm thinking that the continued repetition of the word "butcher" is going to prove telling, but this occurs in the next hundred pages, so will leave that for now.

On the washing, I can't understand how a jail would not allow much washing. I note when she meets with her lawyer she is unwashed but when she appears for the trial she IS washed but again I need to stick to the first hundred pages.

That was an excellent point Betty raised, by the way, about the interjection of Frankie's thoughts in italics telling us she was illiterate, giving us her point of view, and how she was seen by the jailer, but not yet telling us whether or not she did the murder...

Why italics???

You almost need a diagram of this one to keep the players and the plots straight! But is she effective at it so far?

Eddie: Yes, do keep on, especially with your roots, can you elaborate on where you think her characters are too "talky?" I can't help thinking how much ground some other authors cover in their first hundred pages.

What do you all think of her practice of ending almost every chapter with another mystery??

IS this a mystery or a historical thing, or what??

Ginny

I've assumed from the beginning that there were three graves because various body parts were found at different times. Guess that's just my morbid horror flick mentality. "They buried what they found...But there'll be more come spring" (p.64).I've never read McCrumb before (had not heard of her). I note that this is 5th in her "Ballad Series". Does "Ballad" apply to the others in the series like it does in this one?

I don't find the narrative voice changes a problem (to this point). She keeps it pretty simple. Chapter changes (or italics) for changes, Lot easier than trying to follow these types of narrative voice changes shifting back and forth almost unnoticed as with some authors.

SPENCER ARROWOOD: I like this guy. I guess his recent shooting has put him in a reflective mood, combined with his maturation as a person.

FRANKIE: One feels sorry for her at this point. Alone, abandoned in unfamiliar territory...besides, we really haven't heard too much to let us sympathize with the 'victim'. She's really painted as the 'victim' so far. No doubt the author is pointing us in this direction.

BURGESS: I didn't have Ginny's reaction to Burgess - but it's so strong I fear I missed something. I'm 'neutral' - have no gut reaction at this point.

Execution: I'd guess that it would come right at the end - last page - after Spencer proves to his own satisfaction Frankie's innocence.

As for the "rope" around Frankie's neck - it appears that her father got representation for his wife and son only and left her to 'hang out to dry' so to speak! She didn't even appear at the Habeus Corpus hearing.

Incidentally, there's a class of ballad writers called "balladmongers". They used to make up lyrics to old tunes - frequently at hangings and sell the printed words as the accused 'last words!!

LORD RANDALL LYRICS O where have you been, Lord Randal, my son? O where have you been, my bonny young man? I've been with my sweetheart, mother make my bed soon For I'm sick to the heart and I fain would lie down. 2. And what did she give you, Lord Randal, my son? And what did she give you, my bonny young man? Eels boiled in brew, mother make my bed soon For I'm sick to the heart and I fain would lie down.

3. What's become of your bloodhounds, Lord Randal, my son? What's become of your bloodhounds, my bonny young man? O they swelled and died, mother make my bed soon For I'm sick to the heart and I fain would lie down.

4. O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son, O I fear you are poisoned, my bonny young man. O yes, I am poisoned, mother make my bed soon For I'm sick to the heart and I fain would lie down.

5. What will you leave your brother, Lord Randal, my son? What will you leave your brother, my bonny young man? My horse and the saddle, mother make my bed soon For I'm sick to the heart and I fain would lie down.

6. What will you leave your sister, Lord Randal, my son? What will you leave your sister, my bonny young man? My gold box and rings, mother make my bed soon For I'm sick to the heart and I fain would lie down.

7. What will you leave your true love, Lord Randal, my son? What will you leave your true love, my bonny young man? The tow and the halter to hang on yon tree, And let her hang there for the poisoning of me.

Jean Ritchie (interesting woman - quite a background) http://www.bellenet.com/ritchie.html

Since I'm not responsible for leading this discussion, and since we seem to be leaping all over the place with plot, voice, questions about what's going to happen, and random interpolations, let me just jump in and say that I think Sharon McCrumb is an not-so-good writer who had a pretty good idea and wrote an inferior book, possibly because (1) she needed to finish it quickly, and/or (2) decent editorial advice wasn't available to her, and/or (3) she simply lacked the skills to put together anything at the level which her idea deserved, and (no OR here) (4) it is classified as a mystery, and everyone knows (or ask a literary agent or someone in publishing if you want this verified) that mysteries are considered literary junk food and are just cranked out. If you wondered why St. Martin's Press books, for example, are crawling with typos and grammatical horrors, it's because they NEVER do more than the most cursory editing of the author's manuscript and they rely on some mechanical device to root out the most obvious howlers in whatever part of the printing process has replaced galley proofs.

Having said all this, I'd like to urge that we, as serious and appreciative readers, give it our best, try to figure out what McCrumb was trying to do and where she fell short, and think seriously about the oh-so-obvious moral and political lessons the book offers.

Ros

LJ, you're just fishin'. You know I'm much older than you, and yes, I've heard of, and heard on records, John Jacob Niles. BTW, was it he who composed "I wonder as I wander" and then palmed it off as an authentic Appalachian folk song? I've also enjoyed hearing recordings by Jean Ritchie and by the various Lomaxes and Seegers, and early authentic Burl Ives and the inimitable Ed McCurdy.

When I was a small child there used to be a wonderful radio program by a group called the Vass Family, Southern Appalachians who sang a variety of the regional songs that were based on the old English ballads and folk songs. (The broadcast was on Sundays, right before or right after the Hartz Mountain Canaries. So there, young feller, gotcha beat by a mile.) I remember John Charles Thomas and by association Thomas L. Thomas, but which one batted out which ballad in which rich baritone escapes me.

Charles W., I have been a Buffy St. Marie fan for years, and since we get Canadian TV here in Michigan, I can still enjoy her though her song content is now almost entirely First Nation stuff, very powerful but differently inspired. She was an artful performer, singing treble through her nose and deliberately tuning her guitar a quarter-tone sharp. We saw her perform once in a local coffee-house. She was strikingly beautiful and her long blue-black hair shone like a starling's back feathers. And if I were to hear her once more singing "Until It's Time for You to Go," I'd fall right down the way I used to. In fact, just thinking about it gives me a funny feeling in the cardiac region.

Ros

When I was reading this book [a few months ago], I kept wondering what common ending to expect from these parallel narrations. Just as many of you are. I felt there had to be a reason! At the end, the reason is clear--at least it was to me. I will be so interested to read reactions to the ending!

Don't you all think Frankie's narrative is in italics to emphasize that she is illiterate? Or to express HER viewpoint as opposed to what Gaither thought OF her?

Well, if there can be historical novels--why not historical mysteries?

Jeryn, not necessarily (speaking of Frankie's thoughts in italics). It just sets it apart and to be perfectly honest with you, the first time the italics appear, I did not even think of it being Frankie's thoughts. Perhaps I didn't have my own thoughts on it, but...

Charles, what a perfectly marvelous post! Thanks so much for the info on Jean Ritchie, what an interesting woman, what a dossier, good grief, and the "balladmongers," (reminds me of that jingle about the Titanic we used to sing as a child). Thanks for the Lord Randal verses, seen in print there's a certain similarity I think?

I'm still confused as to why three graves? Why can't you inter the remains found later in the same grave?

There's a new book out called After the Funeral: the Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses in which some of our more famous personages had several graves:

Joseph Hayden, whose head was fought over for 145 years

Shelley, whose wife kept his heart in one of her books.

Oliver Cromwell, whose corpse was dug up so he could be "properly" hanged for treason

And many others. I well remember in the GB we discussed an author who had three funerals, I want to say it was Hardy, and on my last trip to Italy we encountered a Saint whose hands were in one town and whose head was in another.

Maybe the townspeople were lazy and kept digging graves in Charlie Silver's case.

Ros: Of course we must all be looking for those elements which are of the greatest signifigance to us as we read the book. Since we're taking it 100 or so pages at a time, I can't make any final judgments on moral statements or conclusions yet, but I do want to be alert to each aspect of these elements as they occur, and what the author did to bring them to our attention.

This book to me is like a bag of marbles. Toss it out, watch them roll, and catch them in what they are revealing. I have the feeling nothing is here by chance, in fact, am going on that assumption and altho I have read the next 100 pages will stop so I can confine myself to what's happening here, as I find I DO leap ahead of our scheduled pace.

So character development is important, and I find my own reacion to be (and why would I BE having a reaction unless the author has decreed it?) sort of a bellwether of what the author intends me to think. After all, I have no knowledge of these people or events. So here's what I think:

Burgess Gaither: Ugg ugg, too staid too precise in speech too concerned with family, everybody is related to him, "well bred," these words occur over and over. Unfortunately I didn't mark much in the first 100 pages of his snobbery, but the next hundred are bleeding with such marks. Good ol boys. Cousin this and Uncle that. The best people, different from the animals in the woods.

On page 68 he says Isaiah Stewart was "shackled by his own ignorance and his rusticity." He's scornful of the "rabble" that will attend the trial, the "rabble" apparently being anyone outside his family circle.

His character and its judgments are insidious. He seems to be stating the bald facts as would be actually thought by ANY man of education, but he's the epitome of snobbery, and there IS a difference between being intelligent and well educated and being a snob.

As to poor Frankie, pitiful thing that she is, so sad, only this one bowl, like for the child to have it when she's gone, dirty, abandoned, alone, tiny, quiet....what's not to pity?

I'm neutral on the Sheriff: can't find enough to care about. He doesn't want to get involved and rake up the past, he's injured, but I'm not getting enough to deal with here. So my conclusion at this point is that he's not the main focus. Yet who else can reveal the truth?

Martha is an annoyance and I don't know why she's there.

Fate is a mystery, he's accustomed himself to his prison walls, he used to be a happy little boy but he now hates his brothers and we wonder why? Why? Could they be the actual murderers and have let him hang for it? What is McCrumb suggesting?

Also noted McCrumb's little slap about how LUCK plays a hand in how your life goes, and I wonder what you all think of it? So she's saying that Burgess and his wife were just lucky, and Frankie was not, and if not for the hand of Fate, could they be reversed?

So we've got all these voices talking to us, two plots, it's like a scattered bag of marbles, it really is, but what the reader himself makes of it is what makes it an unforgettable experience for him, or a disappointment. And I'll say right now this is a heck of a build up, hope it does not.

Jeryn and Betty: I'm still stumped on the italics, too. The first time I saw them I thought it was somebody else's THOUGHTS and that was why it was in italics. But the others don't get italics, so I don't know.

Maybe she ran out of fonts for all the characters.

I don't know much about "historical mysteries?" Would this be one?

Hope you all get a chance to drop by the Party Room today and later tonight to the Masked Ball. Apparently they're backing up the server tonight at 8 so we may want to have OUR Ball at 8:45 or so Eastern.

Come as you are, as your favorite Character in Literature. Burgess can stay home!!

hahahahah

Ginny

Ginny, I suppose you are right about the three graves. Perhaps they buried the parts of the body as they found them.

As to Burgess, his speaking of "my Elizabeth" implies she is the greatest, but I suppose mates should think that of their spouses. His concern for relationships seems to stem from his wife though, for he apparently was not of a wealthy family, and why does he keep mourning over his brother? I guess mentioning would be a better word. "Mourning" seems a bit harsh. It seems he has taken a "fancy" to Frankie though he would probably not want to admit it.

As for the "today" Martha, I feel she is out to get Arrowood involved in some romantical tryst. They were in HS together and if she is married, I missed it. Sounds like she is an old maid wanting a man and Spencer will be fine.

Ginny, I LOVE your comments on this book! You are so forthright in your opinions, hanging your gut reactions right out for us all to see! I agree with most of them, but am constrained from too much comment as I already know the ending to this book. I, too, hope it does not disappoint...

Speaking of disappoint... I have labored all week under the misapprehension that the Masked Ball would be sometime in the AFTERNOON, EDT. I have to go out tonight, sob boo hoo! Can I register my character somehow early? So I can sort of participate? I'll be home before midnight EDT, I hope I hope I hope.

Jeryn, bless your heart, if you went in now I don't know WHO will be there, I hate to miss your costume, maybe you could POST in the Party folder as your Favorite Character in Literature, I'm just in again from grapes, going right back out---THAT'S the thing to do, if you CAN'T be here tonight, go ahead and POST in your character right in the Party Room (the first one who does that needs to explain what they are doing!!) Then tomorrow, we'll all go there anyway and unmask...

Betty, what TIME in the present do you see this as occuring?

Jeryn: thanks, I'm enjoying this, now everybody else, give us both barrels of your opinions!!

Ginny

Ginny, I had to go back and read my last entry to see what prompted you to ask the question about time. The Silver murder occurred back in the Nineteenth Century and I suppose I think the Spencer Arrowood section is of current time. I really had not thought about that.

About the 3 graves: that may be just a literary device. The idea of body parts being buried separately as those body parts are discovered kinda makes one's hair stand on end -- much more so than a single grave. And Martha indicated in an early passage that she is divorced; I think she's interested in Spencer but not in an ugly or predatory kind of way. The story is picking up, but it's still middling stuff; doesn't compare to some of the other works we've been reading.

Ginny: I thought that LUCK thing was a major "whine."

Although enjoying the book thus far, McCrumb does seem a little heavy handed in the manipulative department - Ros is right there. We've got Burgess, and (?) on the one hand and Frankie and Fate (Luck??) on the other. That's why I think Arrowood will be the main focus. Ginny used the word 'insidious' to describe Gaither's judgements. Great observation. Don't you just hate it when someone states "the obvious" (like a Burgess Gaither) and you flat out disagree!!

ROS, Please accept my compliments and admiration for your musical acumen. I'm afraid that during the era in question I was just listening to Kay Kaiser's "College of Musical Knowledge" and "The Old Fashioned Revival Hour"

Best

LJ

...Whose name was crossed out on the original arrest warrant - Isiah Stewart?????? ...Parallel: As Pauline Harkryder visits Nora Bonesteel (she has "the sight"), Jacob Silver consults the "Guinea Negro" (he has the conjure power) Gris Gris Gumbo Ya-Ya.

JUST when I thought I had gotten all there was to get out of the first 103 pages, I look in here and PRESTO! A whole new set of questions!

Going to make a list of "unanswered questions" which McCrumb has thrown out and see how many we can fill in by the end of the book.

Charles: !!! Missed that one entirely, altho, admittedly reading in the "30 sec" bytes. Whose name was crossed out on the original search warrant? Did they use Search Warrants back then? I thought Search Warrants were new.

That "sight" business also was a small element of the book, and it set me off on another tangent (GOOD parallel there, Charles) about that issue in general. Is, just for my clarification, this "sight" stuff the same as ESP?? I've heard it runs in families, I know my grandmother was "tested"!! at Duke University yea these many years ago for her "sight" abilities. Is it anything more than being observant and reading clues??

Marge: your comment about the graves makes me wonder IF there is some kind of precedent for these three graves other than McCrumb's doing it? Those who have finished the book already know, of course, but those of us in the first 103 pages find it another question to be answered.

Betty: I reread the blurb on the book and the murders were 100 years apart,and I don't know which murders they are talking about! In other words, Fate's crime is a modern one, (when I add 100 years to 1832, I get 1932)....I do remember a statement now about "Back in those days no one thought that the Appalachian Trail was a dangerous place," or words to that effect on page 90--WHEN WAS THE ARROWOOD character operating? In 1932? I992? Glad to see I have misspelled Appalachian throughout.

I hope, by the way, the loss of the ability to spell does not fortell doom mentally, or all is lost with me.

IS Spencer Arrowood (straight as an arrow?? Am I the only one who hated the "HARD RYKER" (prison) on sight.....) a man of the 1990s? The 30's?? If he's not, then McCrumb's casual use of the word "offing" to mean the murder is out of place? How can we acertain this for sure?

Putting all our unanswered questions in the heading. Who knew there would be so much to discuss in a "mystery?" Ros was right when I whined at her a month or so back, there IS a lot to discuss here.

OH, and Charles, putting up also a list of the author's WHINES. HAhahahahah, you know I NEVER agree with what the obvious is, so I'm used to it! Ginny

Someone said Isaac's name was on the search warrant but it had been stricken out. I haven't been back to check but don't remember that. Perhaps,I am having a senior moment.

The cover shows three separate graves but before I noticed that, last night in fact, why were there three separate monuments? I can see the three graves, for they probably buried them as they found them, but three separate headstones?

Spencer does seem to be straight and narrow but he apparently hid something he had done impulsively in connection with the Trail murder(the first one since at this time he does not know about the second)

Feel I am obligated to say something, seeing as I won a copy of this book from Seniornet!!

I really didn't enjoy the story (sorry for putting a damper) I kept reading and reading, waiting and hoping it would improve, but IMO it didn't. (

Nettie, that's the pits, win a book and dislike it! Now, don't go too far off, we want to hear WHY you didn't like it and WHAT you didn't like about it.

We don't have to like every selection, and sometimes the reason we DIDN'T is more interesting than the reason we DID.

Was there ONE character you felt you could relate to?

Ginny

Nettie, normally, when I start a book, if I am not "into it" by the page 100, I give it AWAY. However, being in this club discussion, I have kept going, and I am interested in it now, though I still do not like the way the author darts off into different directions, in my opinion, in no rhyme or reason.

Dear Burgess is a stuffed shirt; and though I thought Atty. Woodfin was going to try to help her, but don't think he did. I do acknowledge that he was only 21 years old. I guess that old saying about sending a child in to do a man's work was true in this case.

Hooray for the coachman Newland. Maybe he'll get something done. That's as far as I've got, and now I have to shower and dress before going to church, by way of my oldest son's house where I have been invited to EAT!!

TIME: Arrowood was 24 in 1974 at the time of the Trail murders. The present is 20 years later - 1994....The jacket blurb referring to the Silver murder "over a century ago" means, in this case, 162 years - quite a century!!! C- for the jacket blurb writer.

Regarding question #6 above... the value judgement this author inserts into the story: I have to agree with her. People born without advantages have several strikes against them in their struggle with life. And this is purely bad luck, or fate. Having worked for public welfare in my salad days, there is simply no question in my mind this particular value judgement is true.

Well, this is great.

Kudos to Charles for straightening out the time line, and I agree, C-- for the blurb writer! Good, now that's one thing settled.

I agree with Betty, the book is disjointed, that's why, perhaps, our approach is (she whined hopefully) disjoined as we're struggling to deal with all the elements thrown at us!

Luck, Jeryn says luck. Sometimes I do think marriage is the luck of the draw? Some people luck out and others don't. I read somewhere that the mysterious thing that makes a couple "click" is the recognition of shared responses to things, some of which may occur from dysfunctional beginnings (yes, I know everyone hates the word dysfunctional). I wonder if that's true.

I didn't know you had been in social work, Jeryn, how do you account for the few who do make it?

Did you all see the latest study which says it's NOT the environment the child is raised in at all? That parents don't matter?

I, too, wonder why there are three headstones, hope we find out.

Ginny

The next time I post here....hopefully later this afternoon I will have the book in hand, and will have read at least a few pages. I was #2 on the list at the library, but the person who was #1 didn't pick it up in the allotted time.

Yesterday I went to the bookstore and bought Under the Tuscan Sun. I'll take that with me on November 2nd to read on the ship. We'll be back on November 16 so I'll be able to get in on some of the discussion.

Speak to you later.....Love, Fran

Ginny -- how do some make it? Luck. Or the ones with some brains will get somewhere. It's so hard to describe to people who have never seen the inside of a Welfare Department just what such people are like. Try to imagine growing up in a poor, trashy neighborhood; in a filthy, trashy home; with stupid, abusive parents; and having a nutrition problem, inadequate medical attention, and an IQ of about 90. Do you begin to get the picture? Shouldn't have gotten me started...

I enjoyed Frakie Silver very much. I think that the history, and the local descriptions that McCrumb weaves thru all of her stories is the thing that holds my interest.--I also liked the ploy of looking at the "problem" from many different people.--I had to return my copy to library. But will enjoy listening to you all.--

I liked it, too, Putney. Had to return my copy to the library--some time ago. I have read all Ms. McCrumb's so-called "ballad" books and still the one I liked best was She Walks These Hills. I commend it to your attention, Putney, if you haven't already read it.

Seems several readers here do not care for the parallel narrative literary device employed by the author in Frankie. Not to compare authors, necessarily [McCrumb is in good company here!], but I would just point out that this device has been used by other authors with considerable success: Charles Frazier in Cold Mountain springs to mind. Charles Dickens in Bleak House among others. What about the haunting Overboard by Hank Searls? I bet each of you can think of many others...

Jeryn, since I grew up on welfare I'd like to suggest (timidly) that, although you are entitled to your opinion, perhaps not everyone who is the recipient of what used to be called "charity" conforms to the description you give. Yes, you're correct in your suggestion that many things contribute to the ability of an individual to emerge from the undesirable position of receiving welfare.

Members of the "helping professions" often justifiably become discouraged at the impossibility of their jobs. One of the results of the precipitous fall from one's early good intentions to that final mood of angry futility is a sense that the recipients of services -- whether they are of a different race, ethnic group, or social and educational class -- are "The Other." Alienation, in other words, replaces the good will of the outset.

During my 25 years of teaching in inner-city schools I frequently pondered, and discussed with other teachers and administrators, how we could identify the social, political, and personal factors that create and maintain an underclass in a democracy which claims world-leading status. This isn't the place for a forum on the topic, but I'm sure you must have thought about these things too, and perhaps wondered how to change them.

Ros

Parallel plots and parallels to literature, this is great. The only thing we're lacking here is a visit from the author herself! Anybody care to write?

I don't know, there's something about the way she jumps back and forth that's still disconcerting to me, think it could have been done a little better, but will try to hold off judgment until we finish the book.

My next 126 or so pages are angrily marked so I think I'm irritated at Mr. Burgess Gaither. Wonder again at her choice of names.

Roslyn's post brings up a parallel concept itself: the existence of an "underclass." I think this book tries to separate the characters into just such a division, at least that's what I'm getting out of it.

Ginny

Ginny, I thought that both Gaither and Burgess were "Southern" names, meaning that I thought they were fairly common surnames in families of Anglo-Saxon descent who settled in the South and who frequently used ancestral surnames as given names. Am I wrong? A fellow-student in high school was named Hamilton Something (last name escapes me at the moment), and our Southern-born teacher, whose surname was Sedgwick, explained that she had a nephew named Sedgwick Rogers.

What I think is significant in considering the plot of this book is not so much the concept of an underclass as the concept of otherness. An almost unbridgeable gulf separates the Gaithers from the Stewarts and Silvers. The former find it impossible to believe that "people really live like that" or that a young woman should cherish a single decorated bowl when their houses are so full of such decorative objects that they are used for ordinary purposes like mixing, serving, or possibly even washing the baby. The latter can only dream of elegant shoes and clean white dresses.

Yet, were we transported to the stately residences of those haughty upper-class citizens in that place in 1832, we would undoubtedly turn up our noses at the mud in the streets, the spoiling food, the undeniable smell of privies, the lack of ready hot water, and the absence of detergents, cosmetics, and deodorants to mask the human odors of our bodies and our clothing.

Perhaps McCrumb was trying to convey some sense of Otherness when she made Gaither's narrative so formal and stuffy. As the plot unwinds there is an awkward movement toward understanding -- so stiff and clumsy that it couldn't be called empathy. I felt that Frankie's internal monologues reflected more feeling, but again they are almost wholly "literary," not literal. McCrumb did apparently try to distinguish the two strands by an attempt to change the style of the reflective passages.

Ros

OH Ros, yessss. Working in Public Welfare [12 1/2 years] was an absolute revelation to me and changed my outlook on many things forever. Of course, I was referring to the group, the underclass if you will, of people who live off the system all their lives--one way and another. NOT to people who have temporary bad luck, a setback, an illness, and so on, which necessitates temporary assistance. These fleeting recipients make up a pretty low proportion of those who receive public assistance.

Ginny, I was not really a "Social Worker"... I have a Fine Arts Degree, for heaven's sake! I was a "Caseworker" first, a "Social Program Developer" last. Very little actual social work done by moi!

Ros: You're certainly correct about the names, but I guess I'm reacting to the inferences I make when I see them.

Has anybody figured out if Hard Ryker for instance, is a REAL name? I bet not.

Here's a villain named HARD and RYKER for the prison.

Here's a rich man named BURGESS and Gaither. Roslyn, you're the only one of us I know that has the OED? When you get a chance could you look up those two words? I don't know why they are ringing in my ears with such connotations.

Guess I'm thinking of Burgher and Gaited, still aggravate me to death.

Is there anything in the Isaiah, do you think, or is that probably Stewarts real name?

Did you notice the difference in spelling on the writ of Stuart and Stewart? Now, that was interesting to me, too.

Jeryn, one thing extremely interesting to me about social reforms lately is the attitude about MedicAID in the care of the elderly. The "spend down" business because of the extreme cost of elder care, the wiping out of a lifetime's savings. It's interesting that people who would rather die than take WELFARE, when faced with the crushing cost of elder care and the possibility of Social Security running out, have changed their minds about it entirely.

We must do something in this country about the obscene cost of medical services.

As we all look at this book from a different viewpoint, hope nobody minds my nit picking.

As far as how "different" and "other" the mountain people are, if you remember Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune, you may have read his book Sunnybank, Home of Lad in which he describes his neighbors, the inhabitants of a nearby mountain range, as almost sub human, insular, marrry within their own families, etc.,etc. He had me really going with shock at these near animals until he mentioned the mountain range in question!

Guess where it was?

New Jersey!! The Ramapo Mountains.

Have torn the barn apart looking for the book and the local library is not carrying it, but you'd be shocked at it, you truly would.

And so I'm thinking it's a matter of perspective? And that that may be McCrumb's message too, a little wordy, perhaps, but too?

Now next weeks 100 pages are something!

Ginny

A-plus for insightful comments, Ginny. I've never read the Terhune book, but I'd like to invite everyone who (like me) adored the Green Gables books, loved Anne-with-an-E, and read everything available by L. M. Montgomery, to glance back and see how disparagingly she referred to the French-Canadians. They were uniformly The Other.

I suspect that is part of McCrumb's "message." Another part, developed later in the story, is the way in which continuing contact with an individual Other gradually change the way the Other is seen. (Remember that old saw from the 60's? "It's not that I love you because you're beautiful; you're beautiful because I love you.") This softening of attitude can be especially true when Upper has occasion to perform services for or otherwise be kind to Lower, and we will see this later in the book.

If you read more of McCrumb's Appalachian stories, you will discover that Arrowood and Martha are regular characters, so a kind of "Arrowood series" has developed. There was a column in the NYTimes about the popularity of such series detective books. It gives us more of what we read this genre for, a combination of familiarity and predictability with a bit of novelty in plot twists, auxiliary characters, and topical references.

Ros

Ginny, Burgess Sidney Gaither (1803-1892) was a real person. You can verify his existence and get some information about him by going to AltaVista.com and entering his name, which will take you to a page summarizing his political life and also to another page about the whole Gaither family, which began its American existence in Colonial Maryland in the 17th century. There's a Gaithersburg in Maryland.

There were no comparable entries for Harkryder. If I ever find anything I'll let you know. To me it just sounded like a possible surname for a Southern Highland family. "Fate," of course, is the diminutive of Lafayette.

Ros

I have finally started reading The Ballad of Frankie Silver, and the very first thing that I noticed was something in the beginning. Do all of you say......"It's as dull as ditchwater"? Both George and I thought the saying was "It's as dull at dishwater". Hmmmmm. Is dishwater a Yankee thing, because we didn't have many ditches in Brooklyn?

Ginny! You and I could have quite a discussion about MedicAID and medical care THESE days. Ho boy! I keep my fingers crossed every day that luck and fate keep me OUT of the clutches of the medical profession until they get things straightened out. In our lifetime? Probably not!!! I did specialize in Medicaid Nursing Home cases for part of my sentence to the Welfare Department but I know most of that stuff has changed. "Spend down"; oh yeah! I can tell you the "class" [bad word but what other?] of client sure went up under those applications!!!

Fran, we certainly have ditches here in coastal SC, that the means of water running off the lands. I live in a rural area and one portion of my land is called a swamp. I have never been there but there is a stream in the woods somewhere. My land was part of my husband's family estate and where we built our house was woodsland until it was cleared for our house. All of the above relating to the ditchwater quote, but don't remember ever having heard that expression here.

As we go into next week, for I have gone ahead and read some, the plot thickens!!

Ros: I can't believe Gaither is a real person! I bet that accounts for the sudden change in his epistolary style. I bet she copied out some of his own phrases and then had to fall back on modern English as he sounded like a pompous nit. At least he did to me. Gaithersburg, MD, of course. Must go look him up.

And so Arrowood and Martha are continuing characters, well, that, too, explains a lot. She's a bit sketchy on the Martha character, apparently feeling we all have a connection there and understand her, while to me, she's just a skeleton.

Fran: So glad you're with us, I can't remember using that phrase and so don't know whether it's ditchwater or dishwater! I have heard many people misuse "Two to Tango," as "Two to Tangle."

Jeryn: Strange as it may seem, our punitive system of medical care may succeed in erasing "Class" from our society. Maybe now that WE are in the majority as Senior Citizens we can get something done about the laws.

Betty: how pretty that all sounds, have you encountered any of this reliance on family ties? I recall going some years ago with an inlaw to buy a car in rural South Georgia, and we had to establish at every dealership who we were related to first before we could talk cars. The last salesman said "Well I know you'll want to deal with XXXX as he's a kinsman" after about 1/2 hour of chat over relations, and my relative said to me upon leaving, "Now, why would he say that?"

So it's definitely a matter of custom and perspective, and I wonder if our modern moveable society has done more to stop that than PC.

The really ironic thing to me here is that my own mother's family is from Lenoir NC and Morganton, and, as the local beloved doctor, I guess they would have been pretty well connected. I think I'll ask Mother who is 90 if she ever recalls anything about Frankie Silver.

I find I have come to REALLY dislike McCrumb's feeble assigining of Gaither's voice by titling the chapter Burgess Gaither?

She'll be going on another topic and then here's this new voice and behold, you look UP as on page 175 and it says "Burgess Gaither...The Verdict" as opposed to Chapter Five which switches back to Arrowood. If this is supposed to be effective, it's failed with me, just irritates me to death.

Also this is supposed to be an electric section: was it, for you? Where is Eddie Marie?? How effective is McCrumb in this part?

Ginny

Ginny, you won't be cheating if you look at the Afterword and discover that most of the people in the historical section are real, even the Erwin family who are ancestors of the late Sam Erwin.

I've been rereading, trying to pinpoint just what it was that I found so annoying about the structure and style. Many readers have already pointed out how confusing they find this flipflopping from Now to A While Back to Way Back Then, as well as the reckless mingling of third-person, first-person A, first-person B, first-person C in the narration. This is where better editingwas needed.

Most people think of an editor as someone who proofreads the manuscript, adds or removes commas, and tells the author to put in more sex or take out some Politically Incorrect phrases. There's much more to real editing than that.

A competent editor would have examined the manuscript, formed a unified picture of the whole work and grasped what the author's goals were. He/she would then have sat McCrumb down and said, "Honey, first you need to get straight in your mind why you are using these circles-within-circles of narrative, and whether there's a better way.

"Next, you need to segment the manuscript so that every time there is a switch of the when, where, and who of time, viewpoint, or narrator, the reader can easily perceive the shift.

"We'll need to decide how you can identify each section with a date or something else that will clearly prepare the reader for the change.

"Then perhaps (here come the whats) we can look at your Gaither narrative and try to clean it up a bit, weed out some anachronisms that weren't current in 1832, decide whether this is a look-back-from-years-later rather than a day-by-day journal of events, and make sure the tenses agree with whichever you choose, instead of throwing them in at random.

"Where your telegraphing is clumsy, let's make it more subtle. Where you leave your readers too much in the dark (for example if they don't know Arrowood from your other books), let's enlighten them."

I think McCrumb's plot idea and central theme deserved this kind of grooming and I don't think she got it. Of course we can plow through it, in the way that dedicated fans of any genre always press on regardless, but it could have been a more rewarding experience.

Ros

Ros, you really give the lady a "dressing down," and I agree with you, not that I know anything at all about editing a novel. If I were a relative, even far removed, of dear Burgess, I think I'd keep it a secret.

I haven't been able to get the book yet, so I'm just lurking, but I wonder what the story first looked like if it this bad AFTER editing.

Betty and Jackie, I wasn't simply criticizing Sharon McCrumb; I wanted to point out that careful editing makes a great difference in the end product. Did you ever read the novels of Thomas Wolfe? Look Homeward Angel, You Can't Go Home Again, Of Time and the River? The original manuscripts were extensively cut, revised, and edited, and best-selling prizewinners resulted. Cold Mountain received intensive editing by the publisher's editor before it appeared in print. So have any number of important books. And authors like Jackie Collins expect their books to be pretty well rewritten before they get between covers. An author is too close to his/her work to be able to see how it might be strengthened and made more accessible to the reader by certain changes.

Sometimes a large part of this work is done by a literary agent before the manuscript is peddled to a publisher. Sometimes the publisher's editor reviews the manuscript, makes suggestions, and sends it back to the author for revision. Sometimes they work in tandem. However, since publishing has become a hard-dollar business, much less is done to make a saleable product. Instead, publishers depend on intensive marketing (creating a "buzz," with enormous publicity) to give the public the impression that there's a marvelous book that we simply must buy, because everyone else is buying it.

It's interesting that the Silver case takes place during the rise of Jacksonian Democracy - a time that sees the beginning of the end of the American Aristocracy. I see Gaither as a transitional figure here. While he finds Jackson "uncouth" and well liked by the "uneducated dirt farmers", he nevertheless gives some begrudging respect to Jackson being a "self-made man". He seems to have some fascination for Jackson, who is his own man and to whom respect comes easy. The respect, however, comes from the rabble. Gaither would prefer the "respect" (approval) of the "wellborn". This thirst for "respect" (approval) lies behind his obsession with "connections", belonging, one of us - not one of them - OH NO!! Similarly, Miss Mary's "aura of gentility" comes directly from her "good breeding": She has an aura because she's well connected - and for no other reason. So the well born get together to select a lawyer to present Frankie's case to the "loutish" jury. What contempt…as long as they are not drunk, that seems to be the best they can ask for. After all, they "don't ask them to think." Talk about your old-boy network!! Cozy compromise selection - Woodfin is not exactly an outsider - if he's not one of them, he's not one of "us" either. Perfect! And yet….And yet…Gaither DOES envy him. He (Woodfin)gets to bust out - speak for the outsider, defend the underdog, all within the rules,of course. Anyway, ol' reliable Tom Wilson (a nephew of the Prosecutor!!!) will 2d chair. He's already sold Frankie down the river once. Gaither selects a former sheriff to be the jury foreman of the Grand Jury. Can we get a change of venue, please?? Ol' reliable Sam Tate convinces the rest of the Grand Jury to indict only Frankie, instead of all three, to make it an easier case to sell to the jury. Obviously McCrumb bangs us over the head with the fact that the deck is pretty well stacked.

(By the way - for those of you fed up with all the begats and begots and 2d nephews by marriages on the mothers side: Note that even Gaither feels your pain: "No more, please!…My memory has reached its limit"!!!)

And so the trial begins - their "theater". Shades of Court TV and OJ. My how far we've come! It's old home week - everybody knows (if not related to) everybody. The only outsider is……the defendant! Good Luck, Frankie! The prosecution's main aim is to make sure the jury won't have any problem condemning a woman to death.

McCrumb does a pretty good job of stacking up these overwhelming odds against Frankie as she pleads NOT GUILTY. Then Frankie has a truly, ennobling, brilliant insight - she knows that the jury has to see her as "somebody" rather than "nobody" or else she is doomed. It's easy to condemn a nobody. Dehumanized - we can pull the switch. They shoot horses, don't they? Unfortunately, this particular society that Frankie finds herself in places too much stock in connections. Either you have the "aura" or you're the unwashed "other". Interesting that Frankie's "roots" are apparently 'from' something. Her father has some money. As a youngster she was more, in her words, "ladylike". That was before she came to "this place" - this other world where only hard work matters - that is if you don't have the connections. There's that luck-education-advantage thing again.... Maybe her Prince will come to the rescue. Don't bet on it.

Charles, truly astute comments. I suspect though Gaither might have admired Jackson, perhaps as a heroic figure, he wasn't ready to embrace populism in his own back yard. His dawning compassion toward Frankie seems to me to be based on seeing her as a real person rather than a stereotype of the unwashed.

Your posting led me to wonder about that segment of the population that was neither dirt-poor nor aristocratic: successful, fairly solid farmers who lacked education and polish but were able to provide some level of comfort for their families. Where, in your opinion, did they really stand in this community that was still more than half a frontier society?

I've tried to separate the frightening and unsettling events of today from my contemplation of this story about yesterday, but as the plot develops we become aware of a sharp disconnection between the feelings of the general public and the demands of the law. (Notice I didn't say "disconnect," one of today's ugly and ungrammatical buzzwords, which along with "parse" and "proactive" seems to crop up inappropriately everywhere right now.)

Ros

I am definitely getting much more from your discussion of the book right here than I am trying to read it. I find it very confusing. I guess I am not alone in that thought.

Unfortunately I must return it on Saturday to the library so if there are any parts that I should read before then, that are interesting please let me know.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

FRAN!! hahahahahahh You are such a HOOT! What do you mean, if there are any interesting parts? hahahahahahha, I love our Fran. Needed that.

Now those of you who are confused over the changing narrators and the time changes and the parallel plots, do NOT forget us on rating day, because YOUR input is valuable, too, and WHERE is Eddie Marie??

Back tomorrow, have printed out your thoughts to read over tonight, this is great.

Interesting parts! hahahahhahaha LOVE IT!

Ginny

Fran, I'd recommend that you turn to the back of the book and read the Afterword or whatever it's called. Then go back and skim all the Burgess Gaither parts except the italicized sections which are meant to represent Frankie Silver's private musings. Those are worth reading, and they're short. Find the account of the trial and cast your eyes over it for the quotations, which one assumes are taken from the historical record, and they will lead you to the very last part.

As for the present-day surrounding story, I think you might want to read that as if it were a separate novella, which it really is. It has a surprising bitter conclusion.

Ginny, this book has begun to remind me of an English Comp.101 assignment in which the instructor gave us a couple of pages of sentences that had been taken from an unfamiliar essay and scrambled up, and told us to reassemble them so they had unity, etc., etc. It was an interesting challenge because we found there was more than one possible order in which to put the sentences, and there could be arguments about which sentences would go together to form a paragraph.

I think this is relevant to the point I made about editing a manuscript.

Ros

Dear Ros,

Thank you very much for the advice which I shall take. I have copied your message, and will print it out so can catch up some.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Ros - That other segment of this frontier society doesn't play too prominent a role up to this point. Perhaps McCrumb is too intent on drawing the clear lines of distinction between the exalted and the unwashed. They do seem to make up the bulk of the jury, which Gaither has selected, however: "upstanding", not particularly well connected, unexalted men. "Plain spoken" men who'd lend the "common touch" to the proceedings. They are men to be led - the masses. It is the challenge and duty of men like Gaither to lead them in the right direction - as opposed to down the wayward Jacksonian path. They certainly have a function in his world. They lend him legitimacy. Ros, sometimes I wonder about the difference between the demands of the law and the desires of the lawmakers - then and now… "The prince speaks" - Woodfin's defense begins. Margaret declares Frankie a NObody - Woodfin hints that Margaret is a jealous BUSYbody. Frankie COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WORKING ALONE - even Frankie reacts to this. Frankie is HIDING something! I think McCrumb does a good job with the trial events, including the appeal procedures - covers them simply, but covers a lot of ground. Shows Woodfin planting valid reasons for reasonable doubt. I was shocked that defendants were not allowed to testify in felony cases at this period of time. I'd never heard this. I'll assume it's true history. Also the fact that apparently, the presiding judge, delegated to the Clerk of Court, WRITES THE APPEAL - NOT the defense attorney. Wow!

More on the luck theme: Burgess ponders the "good fortune" or "upbringing" that separates the murderer from the law-abiding citizen. There's always "justice in heaven."

After the trial when Frankie is led away - I'm wondering whatever happened to Woodfin. The Prince didn't turn into a toad - he just disappears!! "She never saw him again". The Judge writes the 'appeal'. He never appears at court for the appeal process. But public opinion has turned. A popular appeal is in process. During the first 200 odd pages of this book we learn that the law is subservient to the lawmakers - that justice is subservient to the law. In the second half, it appears we'll learn that mercy is subservient to justice!

Ginny. About your irritation with McCrumb's quaint Chapter heading technique: Here's my take. Chapters 1-10 are today's novel - the Spencer Arrowood tale. The "Burgess Gaither" 'sections' are parallel, interwoven parables about class and justice - all that good stuff! The Ballad to today's Oratorio. OK. I just jumped overboard. Sorry!

P.S. ROS: You can write the Cliff Notes for this book. HA!!

Sharyn McCrumb has been on my authors list for several years. I hope that she has not lost her touch. I am eager to read this one to check it out.

Jackie, since you are familiar with McCrumb's books and apparently, like them, perhaps you can give us some insight as to why she wrote such a book as this present one.

I was surprised at the proceedings in the court room and dear Burgess' duties. I was a legal secretary for forty years, but am thankful to say, not for a criminal lawyer. However, the first job I ever had for secretary in the Sheriff's office, with my duties reaching out to the Coroner, when murders, accidents, all relating to deaths, occurred. I was the stenographer and at that time, there were no machines, tapes or otherwise used....all in shorthand, my dears.

Ginny, EddieMarie is still here...muddling through. Was beginning to make some headway with "Frankie", thanks to Ros and Charles'comments! However, recent visit with my Dr. has really thrown me for a loop...I have been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and am in middle of tests and trying to understand diet, exchanges, etc...I am afraid this has just "blindsided" me! Meeting with Dieticians, ADA support groups, etc...(and I thought "Frankie Silver" was hard to comprehend!!! Will be in and out, sporadically, until I can get a hold on this. Know I sound like a "ninny", but this has really devastated me!

I will make time to keep up with y'alls discussion of this book, as that is so much more interesting to me than the book itself and affords me some understanding of it.

later...

Eddie

Eddie: Nellie Vrolek, discussion leader in SF and in Horror, is a Type II Diabetic. Talk to her, she is a gem. There are exciting developments in the treatments available for this malady, I've read. Hang in there, we're all on your side.

You asked me about McCrumb. Let me explain about more about me, first. I approach a book, looking for entertainment and intellectual involvement. Part of the enjoyment comes from secønd guessing the author: syntax, wordsmithing in general, motif, character development, plot devices, etc. Does the author involve ME in the book. I look for clever word play, subtle hints, loose threads. Rarely do I condemn an author for a failed attempt. With McCrumb, there are "hooks" from other books which I am familiar with, so it is a comfortable milieu to me. I find that many times a book that absolutely delights me does not appeal to others. Puzzling. In other words, I do not judge, I participate. Recently I read a book which I hated, the author and I are not even in the same solar system. But that was a visceral reaction (pardon the pun). McCrumb's latest experiment may not quite succeed, but so what. It will still be a pleasant interlude.

Have finally read the first two hundred and then some. Have been following along with the posts from the first.

I knew that the characters in the book were bothering me due to a lack of believability. They aren't fleshed out enough to be real people about whom I can care. Frankly, (please pardon the pun) I don't give a hoot what happens to any of them. When I was reading last evening, I realized that in my head I had conjured up a visual image of grade school children putting on a play. This was particularly strong when B.G.'s sisters-in-law went to the prison to visit Frankie. That's how uni-dimensionl they presented themselves to me as the reader.

While B.G. is drawn as a stilted stick, the author uses him to convey some feelings about the system, lawyers, justice or lack of same. There are indications of serious thoughts he would have liked to express aloud but couldn't because of his fear of jeopardizing his prized position in that society.

"We doctors and lawyers and preachers and judges act as if we hold the power of life and death over those who pass before us,as if nothing frightens or dismays us, but really we are so many pawns in the game...People trust us so much:yet we can do so little" (B.G. pg. 189) What do they say about as much as things change that's how they stay the same.

In the beginning of the book it annoyed the heck out of me when McCrumb jumped between time periods. Now I find myself relieved to be brought back to the present time period for a respite.

Helen:Nice observations on the depth of the characters drawn here. I laughed at the part about the sisters. I usually draw mental images of all characters, and, I swear, when I read the scene where they visited Frankie in her cell,I'm visualizing a scene from a truly bad production of Little Women! Also, I hadn't been able to quite grab the thought but I'm with you 100% on BG's reluctance to express some ideas/feelings he might have had because of his fears. Thanks!

Jackie: Can you help me out with a question I asked early on? The Ballad Series. What's common to all of them that they're grouped as a "Ballad" series?? I've never read McCrumb before.

Aside to Ginny: The Welch Grapes are all in. Around 210,000 tons of Concords and maybe 40,000 tons of Niagaras!! And that's one of the smallest crops in 10 years!!

Dear Eddie Marie,

So sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I can well understand being thrown for a loop when you got the news. But now for the bright side.....Now that you know what it is you can plan the diet, and probably feel a lot better when you start eating for your good health.

I carry you close to my heart!!

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Eddie Marie, I'll leave the specific advice to the experts, but wanted to say that I empathize with the feelings, which must include confusion, fear, and a bit of anger -- that those of us who are "on the sunny side of the slope" experience when the Medical They tell us there's something wrong. Having prepared meals for my Type II mother for about 15 years, I found that the task was tedious but do-able, and was rewarded by seeing her condition improve and her weight go down gradually. She had a lot of self-discipline and it seemed to me that it was an important factor. (Of course I did the learning and cooking, and she did the eating, but she didn't cheat.)

As a mature individual you can tell yourself (after the panic subsides), "I'm controlling this thing; it's not controlling me."

You have my best thoughts.

Ros

Well, my goodness , what a wealth of ideas! It's always a joy, if I may say so, to come in here to our good old Book Club and see such interesting and thought provoking ideas, love them all.

Ros: that was very interesting about the role of an editor, obviously McCrumb has total control over her books. I have heard from those who have met her that she's a bit preemptory and strange, maybe after all her books she can lord it over the publishers and editors. I agree with you now, with my new perspective, that she should have let SOMEBODY do something to it.

And that bit about the "reckless mingling of tenses," yes yes. Is "parse" being used now? I love to parse. Maybe we should open a folder just to parse! hahahahahaha

I knew the minute I saw Sam Erwin he at least, was real.

Also your designation of the time periods, "Now, A While Back, and Way Back Then...." laughed out loud.....

Betty, what a hoot, so if you were a descendant of Gaither, you'd keep quiet about it! hahaha I wonder what his descendants are thinking? I bet they're not happy.

Now, Charles, thanks for introducing the historical perspective into this and the "Jacksonian Democrary," and the fall of the American Aristocracy. That's an interesting concept: an American arictocracy. These settlers here as I recall, were the third and fourth sons of the titled in England who would have received nothing.

Do we have an American aristocracy today? Is money our new determinant? Are the Kennedys an aristocracy? Perish the thought. It's interesting that then as now the crowds are what determine aristocracy, or are they?

Your take on Miss Mary's "aura" was right on. " She has an aura because she's well connected - and for no other reason." So we're saying here that the "aura" of being a gentlewoman is only conferred by those who actually KNOW a person and that a stranger could not see anything but pride?

I've noted your quote about Luck again and put it in the heading.

I thought this was brilliant: " This thirst for "respect" (approval) lies behind his obsession with "connections", belonging, one of us - not one of them - OH NO!! " That's probably the driving force for all such obsessions? No?

I also was brought up short by the defendant's not testifying, but find I care so little about one more detail that I'm not gong to look it up.

Betty: LEGAL SECRETARY? SHORTHAND?? WOW. Tell us your opinion of the legal aspects of this case, I know nothing of the law. Does this all seem reasonable or accurate?

Our Eddie: Type II Diabetes? Well, I guess you ARE thrown for a loop! Isn't this the one which can be controlled by diet and exercise? Now we'll be pulling for you, and the suggestion to talk to Nellie is a great one, she's a great person. And so are you. Now you hang in there, mercy what we have to go thru in this life.

Jackie: That was lyric, on what you look for in a book, I feel the same way. Wonder if we should apply those principles to this book? Why not? I wish you had been able to get it, as a review from one who has read her others might be very helpful. WE need to ask ourselves if THIS book is doing what Jackie has outlines.

Helen: Boy, you hit it right on the head as usual! I've now read to within 4 pages of the end, and I hate to tell our Fran, but there ARE no interesting parts, unless they're in the Afterword, and I also hate to say there's yet ANOTHER court case, and I myself thought, O please, this is just TOO MUCH. You realy don't care about the characters at this point. At least I didn't. Helen also, as an afterthought, in a letter to me, expressed some other thoughts on the book and I wish she'd mention them here, about types of books for bookclubs, I thought they were valuable.

But more to say on the last segment next week. For sure, our thoughts are much more interesting than the book.

OK, Charles, rub it in!! hahahahahahhah Good grief, what a harvest! Good grief! But Charles, he he he, can you make even ONE jar of Muscadine or Scuppernong jelly from all that? he he he she cackled.

So that's where the white Welch's grape juice comes from: Niagra? We used to have Niagra, and Concord as well, had 6 acres of Concords, they don't want to grow here, need a lot of fungicide, had to take them out.

I'm going to add a few points to the header and sit back and enjoy all your comments, what a great place!

Ginny

Oh, and, your reactions to the statement in the heading that people were tougher 100 years ago??

Were they??

Ginny

Yep, then I first got out of school, my first job was based in the office of the Sheriff, but one of my duties was to go to Inquestions and take the testimony, in shorthand. Than it had to be typed up and placed on record. I know that different states have their own laws, and I really don't know butI was thinking a defendant could testify in his/her own defense. I know sometimes the attorney does not think it feasible. For an example, remember O.J. did not testify in the murder case? All of this was before I became a legal secretary. "My" attorneys did not represent criminals, but real estate matters, estates, corporations, accidents,etc.

Didn't the author say in those days a defendent could not testify in his own defense? As for the present time, I was on a jury trial once in which the defendent did not testify and the judge explained carefully that it was by his personal choice, that he could have if he had wanted to.

Loma, as to the defendant testifing, I think that is true. That is why I mentioned the O.J. trial, he could have, but probably did not want to, and then his attorneys did not want him to.

These townspeople definitely felt they were a notch above the mountain people; however, it gives them a snooty appearance.

As to someone watching as Frankie scrubbed the floors, perhaps it was the man who doubled back and decided to look in the cabin for Charlie instead of joining the others in the search in the woods.

I gather from comments made, not too many people really cared for this author's way of telling the story(s). I'm glad I borrowed it from the county library and did not pay $15-20 for it.

Yes,we'll have a high old time rating it, you can be sure of that!

I've been conducting my own poll in the neighborhood about whether people 100 years ago were "tougher," as the author states in her book.

So far, my neighbors think the answer is " 100% YES." I wish I still had grape customers coming so I could take a big poll.

I don't think so. Note how young they died? Worn out at 40. Beat themselves to death. Does that make them stronger? Is modern medicine the reason we're actually alive longer?

Ginny

Charles: Forgive me; I didn't mean to ignore your question, but I did forget it. The Ballad Series: Three that I know of: The Rosewood Casket, She Walks These Hills, Frankie Silver. I do not recall much about the rosewood casket. She Walks These Hills I have read more recently. In each book a contemporary story is taking place, and it has some parallels with history. The She is a young mother who was captured by Indians. She was carried off several days journey. Her attempt to escape and return to her people is the history thread. Rosewood is about, not a coffin, but a chest. I can't remember much more than that. Now I will have to re-read them all. Oh, well, it's a dirty job, ...

I am a romantic, in some respects. The parts of the countryside here which look much as they must have looked 200 years ago are very appealing. I try to create stories about those people and their lives. McCrumb is bringing to life my fantasies.

Two of McCrumb's earlier books are also meant to be in the so-called "Ballad" series, I believe: The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and If Ever I Would Leave You, Peggy-O.

Jackie, I recall the "Rosewood Casket" was a coffin? Wasn't the story about a man trying to reunite his estranged sons [estranged from each other] by having them build his coffin? Been a while since I read it...

Ginny: I don't think people were "tougher," in the old days, either. I think the species is more than anything else, adaptable. Times were tough, so people did what they had to do to cope....so it goes.

Yes, Jeryn, that`s how I remember The Rosewood Casket also. There also was a box with the bones of a young girl. The mystery was--who was she--why did the older woman want them buried with the man (who was to be buried in the rosewood coffin)--that was to be made by his sons.

I am sure that I have confused everyone thoroughly--

I have not read Ballad of Johnny Silver--I do enjoy reading your comments.

It's coming back to me now. Was Nora Bonesteel in that one? She seems to be another thread in these Ballads. Jeryn, May, what do you think of Sharyn McCrumb? She is not faring well here. I haven't found the book, so am speaking out of ignorance on the present title, but I like her books, some more than others, but I've never felt like throwing HER books against the wall in frustration.

I think Sharon McCrumb is a good writer and like the fact that she is writing about an area that you can tell means a lot to her. So many of the English are so good at writing of "place" but not many U.S. authors are.

It would help if when there was a switch that a chapter heading would include date, county and state.

Okay I have finally returned Frankie and her ballad to the library, and picked up a book they were holding for me that nobody I know liked. I think it's called "A Monk Swimming" by brother Malachy of the McCourt clan. I'll just skim through it. I kind of feel sorry for him writing this book after Frank's Pulitzer Prize winner.

I did as you suggested and read the Author's notes at the end. The most interesting thing to me her mentioning Boone, North Carolina a few times. My son't girl friend is from Boone. Perhaps she would like the Ballad more than I did.

As far as people being stronger, or having a harder time in years gone by....I think they did. Women in particular had a harder time, but even now the young woman who is juggling a career, marriage, children and family and social obligations while having to look attractive is far from taking it easy. I think Charles is correct. People learn to adapt to the situation that they find themselves in, or perish.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Going back a step or two to the discussion about whether people were tougher "back then," I'd like to refer everyone to the Poetry discussion, where Loma (in Message #730) has posted a link to an unusual poem by Donald Justice about the Great Depression, in which he makes a challenging statement about exactly that question.

I'll refrain from joining the discussion about whether McCrumb is a "good writer." This is an area as ill-defined and as elusive of consensus as "100 best books," but I'd never want to win an argument or lose a friend whose ideas about it differed from mine. I've noticed that my three children, whose literary tastes I firmly directed when they were small, all have different ideas about what is worth reading.

Ros

Ros: we were posting together, thanks so much for that reference, will go read it and then come back in with comments, too.

Have really enjoyed everyone's remarks. It's always interesting to me when the attorneys for the defense do not put the defendant on the stand. Betty and Loma, what DO you think would have happened if they had done so in the case of OJ? I personally think he would have hung himself, but that's just my opinion.

I note also Betty's astute remark that the "otherness" of the mountain people from the town people made the townies look snooty. I think that was McCrumb's purpose, but am not sure in my own mind that legally she really had a point. We'll have to debate that next week in our FINAL? week, boy this one has gone FAST.

Jeryn and Jackie and May, thanks so much for that background information. Maybe if I knew MORE of the Arrowood character I could appreciate it better. May's remarks on the Rosewood Casket make me almost think this is a very similar book? Bones and a mystery?

And Charles and Fran have hit the nail on the head, adapt or die. And Fran added the kicker: look attractive while you're doing it, too! Now, surely the pioneer women didn't worry about looking pretty after a day of pounding rocks with lye. Poor things. But somewhere I read that....is it true that we have actually LESS time to spare today? Don't see how that's possible, but have read it. Not so much physical drudgery, perhaps, but more piled on. Think of the car pools and the cub scouts and the ballet lessons etc., etc.

I'm reading the most wonderful book, and it has a bearing on The Ballad of Frankie Silver and another book we're reading with the author kibitzing!!??!! Our Guys.

It's How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. Of course WE all know how to read a book or we wouldn't be IN here, yet they make some really good points, and I'd like to mention just one here now:

Chapter 11:

Agreeing or Disagreeing With An Author

The first thing a reader can say is that he understands or that he does not. In fact, he must say he understands, in order to say more. If he does not understand, he should keep his peace and go back to work on the book.

There is one exception to the harshness of the second alternative. "I don't understand" may itself be a critical remark. To make it so, the reader must be able to suport it. If the fault is with the book rather than himself, the reader must locate the sources of trouble. He should be able to show that the structure of the book is disorderly, that its parts do not hang together, that some of it lacks relevance, or, perhaps, that the author equivocates in the use of important words, with a whole train of subsequent confusions. To the extent that a reader can support his charge that the book is unintelligible, he has no further critical obligations.

Let us suppose, however, that you are reading a good book. That means it is a relatively intelligible one. And let us suppose that you are finally able to say, "I understand." If, in addition to understanding the book, you agree thoroughly with what the author says, the work is over. Thae analytical reading is completely done. You have been enlightened, and convinced or persuaded. It is clear that we have additional steps to consider only in the case of disagreement or suspended judgment. The former is the more usual case."

The whole book is like this, interersting, no? Now, in the case of the book we're reading, I'm going to be interested in seeing next week whether, in fact, you DID understand what the author intended, or if you had to get your understanding of her intent from the afterword? And whether or not you thought she had made her point, or as Ros would ask, at what point in the book did the author (help me out, Ros,) tell you WHAT the book was about? And what of the "Eddie Marie" principle, did we learn anything from the book and can we apply it to our own lives?

And WHO ever thought or dreamed we'd EVER get this much out of this book? Not me, for sure, this is a great experience.

Ginny

Great post, Ginny!

When I read Frankie, the reason for the parallel narratives was confirmed for me at the point where it was apparent that "Fate" also was innocent of the crime for which he was to be executed AND that members of his own family were the actual culprits. I read the Afterword afterwords [tongue in cheek].

The first novel of McCrumb's that I read was She Walks These Hills and, while I've enjoyed the others--varyingly--I felt that one to be the best in all ways. I do agree with some of the adverse comments about Frankie; nice idea, nice plot, but could have been handled better and probably shortened somewhat. Still, I was so moved by Frankie's death, I nearly cried. [I cry easily--sometimes]

Ginny, answering you, I,like you, think O.J. would probably have hung himself, since he is so full of himself, if he had been put on the stand. His attorneys were probably wise in not having him testify.

In the case of "Frankie," of course, the law kept her off, but I definitely think a person should have the opportunity to speak in their own defense. It is apparent in her case, she was protecting another, as was Fate. I have forgotten how far we are along in the discussion and since I have completed the book (I have to return it to the Library) I'll stop at this.

Betty, you were right at the perfect spot, and today we can let it all hang out!

Yes, we're at the end, have posted several questions in the header, and would like to hear everyone's summation of the book in terms of however you'd like to give your final impressions.

Did the author convince YOU of something? Was her technique effective? Do see the questions up top and give us your views!!

Shall we table voting on a FEBRUARY BOOK NOMINATON another month? WE seem to be getting pretty far ahead??

What are your thoughts this am on the book or anything else relating to the Book Club??

Ginny

Just to start, I'd like to give my opinion of Question #3 above:

3. Does this make any sense? "Why didn't you tell us what really happened?...Because we're Celts and mountain people,...We don't trust authority figures, and we haven't since the Romans landed in Britain and started calling the shots. We never think the law is going to be on our side, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, we're right. Who am I to change that today? "

There's nothing more disgusting to me than somebody who does a hateful or extremely emotional thing and then tries to pawn responsibility for it off on some vague, O, we've always done that. That's the way we are, and WHO we are, since time immemorial.

The number of people now alive who faced the ancient Romans are very few, I would think, and so is the memory of those who faced them down, except in some kind of myth or legend. In some cases, history, however slanted, was written on the spot. In other cases, ballads may have arisen which changed over time to reflect whatever the sentiments of the time were. History has a way of distorting events, too, and some of the tenets we think we hold dear were actually completely other things in the past.

I love the story, and have told it here before, of the roast beef dinner which was done by special recipe in one family which involved cutting off one corner of the meat. Always the same corner. This tradition was passed down as gospel in one family from generation to generation until one day, one of the cooks, in passing thru the Pearly Gates, met the originator of the custom. "Dear Great Great Great Great Grandmama," she exclaimed, "I've always wondered WHY we cut the end off the roast to make it cook so well."

"Oh, goodness, " laughed the originator, "I didn't have a pan big enough."

I'm not saying traditions are bunk, I'm saying that we're the same people now that they were then, and that the Romans were, except we've had perhaps more advantages and opportunities than at any other time in history, and so, in my opinion, we need to fall back less on crap like that italicized above, and more on our own characters.

That's my opinion, what's yours?

Ginny

3. On the other hand, viewpoints often don't change. I think, looking back over the decades of my life, that people's general viewpoints have changed a lot, but that is because of our vast exposure to the news media and opinions and changes in laws and so on. Those people were much more - would you say insular? - so their viewpoints wouldn't have changed much. Even after living in a big city, I can often see myself having some viewpoints of my Dad's family. One being, let the facts speak for themselves, don't talk about it much. Now that really doesn't work that well in larger groups coming from all types of backgrounds.

I don't remember much about the background of our legal system; did it come from the Saxons? "The King's peace"? Or was it from the Romans? Anyway, isn't it Louisiana that is - or at least was - a bit different from the other states because it was based on French law? Thus if the people were of Celtic background, their viewpoint could still be different and thus not in harmony.

Well, I've read the book, and watched the discussions here, and have more thoughts, but the "trolls in this machine" are slowing up my keyboard, and the scroll bars aren't working, so will try another time. Thanks for all your postings; it really makes a person think!

Question #4 above: Did the author convince me of anything in particular? I'm not sure McCrumb's objective of showing how our justice system fails the poor and unconnected totally comes through. Any system involving human beings is going to make mistakes because human beings make mistakes. I'm afraid I still believe in the death penalty!

I think the systems failed these two examples, Frankie and "Fate", because of their own ignorance. I'm not convinced they went to their deaths to protect family members; rather, they didn't know what else they could do. At any point in their trials, periods leading up to trials, or afterwards as they awaited their deaths. True, they are not provided with adequate legal counsel; but I still think each individual's best defense against a hard, cold world--in any endeavor--is knowledge.

What is really sad are those individuals unlucky enough to be born without sufficient ability to even assimilate knowledge... there are more of them around than you can believe.

(Well, here goes the fourth try to get this posted.)

Ginny, thanks to you or whoever is responsible for the summation questions, which take us away from the simple I-liked-it, I-didn't-like-it way of evaluating a BC selection; and thanks to the numerous participants who have based a meaningful discussion on what could have been treated as just another detective story with a surprise ending.

Frankie Silver held my interest throughout, though I found myself doing a mighty lot of skipping whenever Burgess Gaither put pen to paper(or mouth to ear, since we never do know whether he was talking to his grandchildren or writing his memoirs). I'm sure I wasn't the only one who predicted the outcomes some time before the ends of the stories. That wasn't because McCrumb was dropping hints along the way, but rather because the whole three-ring plot seemed to make it inevitable.

McCrumb certainly hammered home her convictions about the way ethnic/cultural biases take the place of justice. The story wasn't about Fate Harkryder but in a way he was the most poignant character in the whole book, trapped by forces he couldn't control, becoming hopeless, ultimately so habituated to his shackles that he couldn't even envision freedom. Because he was skillfully portrayed as so unlovable and unworthy, it was more of a hard lesson to recognize what our society does to make such people ever more unlovable and unworthy and ultimately to destroy them.

Are we rating? I'd give it a 7.

Ros

Answers: no.; 1, nope, I personally could not see why the author went about telling of these murders back and forth; 2. No reason to elaborate on the place of death for Fate, other than to fill up space, and in fact, I skimmed over the details of the room, etc. As for the Colonel, being an Army man, he probably acted fairly normal. He was apparently crushed with his daughter's death and he wanted to be sure her killed got "his just due." However, I am not so sure the right person was electrocuted. It seems like Fate, like Frankie, took the blame for another;3. No; and 4. I would not recommend this book to anyone without telling them what they are in for.

Justice should be the same for everyone, but I think we are all aware that today "it is who you know, not what you know" that gets us ahead in life. That is not the way it should be.

In all fairness, I must add that mysteries are not the type book I like to read. I thoroughly enjoyed Eugenia Prices' books on Savannah, Georgia, but not so much on Florida. . .

Just dashing in to say just a reminder that the Great Books discussion is choosing their next selection, do help them vote and join in, too. The discussions are always very satisfying. Here's the URL: Vote Today

Ros: No, that was I, "Whoever" is on vacation! hahahahah Love all your posts, hope to get back in here this evening with my reactions to the other points in the heading, and yes, we can do our 1-10 rating if you'd like, I'm going to hold off on mine, tho, as I don't think you all will like it.

Ginny

I've made plenty of comments earlier. In spite of some faults in writing and presentation, I'll give Frankie an "8".

Do most of you view this as a mystery? or as a novel? Our local library files it in the fiction area, NOT in the mysteries area. Just wondering...

I just couldn't get interested in this book at all. It seemed to jump around so much that I quickly lost interest. If you want me to vote I will.....but why should my vote count when I read less than 100 pages. I know I will enjoy "Under the Tuscan Sun" much more.

We are leaving on November 2 on a cruise, and I will be back online around the 20th. Or before if I can get organized. I'll be anxious to read all of your remarks about the book. Your comments make even a book I haven't read very interesting.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

You know, I hate to say this, and I really don't know WHERE to say this, whether here or in the Library or all over these folders, but I really really LOVE our Books sections!

I love coming in here, maybe it's been a hard day, or something, or whatever, but when I come in here, I'm immediately taken away and have to think, and enjoy everybody's posts and opinions. We're quite unique in that we can agree to disagree and appreciate everybody's opinions and respect them, as well. I'm not finding many other sites or any, really, like it. We're unique, and I really love it and just want to say YAY for our BOOKS!! I think I WILL put this in the Library, hate to interrupt their trivia game, they're all a WHOLE lot smarter than I am.

Ginny: back tomorrow am

OK, a few thoughts on everybody's posts to date: Charles, Eddie Marie, where are the rest of you??

Loma's point about viewpoints stuck with me all day, and she's right in that some things are inevitably passed down for good OR ill, maxims which deal with coping with a situation especially seem to be remembered.

I keep thinking of Frost's "Mending Wall." Remember it? There seems to be no point to an old stone wall in an orchard yet the neighbors meet yearly to keep rebuilding it. Frost can't get his neighbor to stop and rationalize about it: "He will not go beyond his father's saying/
And he likes having said it so well, he says it again: 'Good fences make good neighbors.'"

I love that poem, think Frost said a world in it, hope someday we can look at it more closely. But it does speak to the issue we're discussing.

I really don't know what our legal system is based on? I had thought that the Roman system of justice had pretty much prevailed. Their Senate, their laws, their general way of doing things, and I personally thought that Louisiana was unique in that it was truly based on the Roman system, but would need somebody else to tell us all. I know the Russians used the Julian calendar until the Revolution, written by Julius Caesar, as did we all till we switched to the Gregorian because of the lapse of days for leap years which built up. I'm sure you know that Julius Caesar also "invented" the One Way Street, it's amazing how many Roman customs have come down to us, but that's another discussion for another time.

This is too long, will break it up,

Ginny

Jeryn had mentioned that she did not think that McCrumb had achieved her objective in showing an inequality in the justice system, and I don't either. Other authors have done it much better, and with better writing. Johathan Harr, for one, and Snow Falling on Cedars, for two.

As far as IS this a mystery or IS it a novel? If it's a mystery, I sure didn't care how it came out? Two historic mysteries, should have taken one and run with it. Why include Fate? Why bother. Very confusing to me, but I read it fast, and that always counts for ill.

Ros, I, too, skipped Mr. Gaither's prose, and good point about his intended audience! All I knew was that it was a mess. Couldn't follow it.

Like Betty, I, too, skimmed the descriptions of the prison and electrocution rooms and facilities: who cares? By that time the author has exhausted us with endless adjunct details and we just don't want any more. I didn't, anyway. Enough.

Our Fran: off agian on a cruise with a book, must put her pix back in the heading. In fact, we now have so many good pictures of our Books people I'm thinking of having a Reader of the Week featured or something, oh why not?

If we want to apply the Eddie Marie Principle and ask What have I learned from this book, what have YOU learned?

If we want to ask, Has it added anything to my life.....what would YOU say?

Did the author make a lasting impression on you at all?

What's YOUR rating of this book on a scale of 1-10?

Charles, get your feet out of that grape vat, quit stomping those grapes and give us your opinion!!

Ginny

Hey I learned the derivation of the word gala. That was a surprise and kind of interesting. If I can remember it, I might even draw on it someday. Can you really imagine life EVER being so barren that the hanging of a human being would be like one big party, a treat…"their theater".

The redeeming qualities of the book for me were the pictures of the lives of the mountain people, their beliefs ,customs . The city folk were rarely more than the shells of people to me, they refused to come to life.

So sure I learned something from the book. I had to force myself to finish it and in many parts I skimmed my way through it. I leave it with my vote of an uncertain 6. Have we ever set up criteria for these numbers or are all of us picking them out of the air as I just did?

I have my copy of Tuscan Sun and am looking it over to get a feel for it. Did you know that there are recipes in it ? Does this mean I might have to cook or can I just read them and enjoy them (as is usual in recent years).

Ginny: I agree with the idea to hold off on another vote for now. We do have a line-up of books to be read in the months ahead.

Dear friends,

We certainly do have a variety of opinions here about many of the books. As you know...truthfully... I just didn't want to waste my time on this last book. But.....quite some time ago I had reserved "A Monk Swimming" by Malachy McCourt at the library, and the other day I received a notice that it was available for me.

By that time I had read that 1. It wasn't up to the standard of Frank's Angela's Ashes, and 2. It wasn't a very good book.

Well, I must have very lowbrow taste. He is a very earthy person, and I am enjoying it. True, it is not Angela's Ashes, but he is a witty guy. He had one phrase that I hope is all right to use here. He is talking about not having sex as a young man newly arrived in New York, so he refers to ...."Shaking hands with the unemployed!" Well, I really howled at that. If you don't get it....send me an E Mail.

I think I will post this in the Library also.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Helen, of course, gala, I learned that too, and I did learn there WAS such a person as Frankie Silver, and a little about the ballad form.

Redeeming qualities of the book? hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....will have to think a bit on it.

I note YOU skimmed and skipped, too. That is not a good omen for me when I start skimming and angrily marking passages.

I hate this, but will give the book my rating of a 5? Was going for 3, and was influenced by your posts, now as to the criteria, we did have some once, when we were 1-5, but lost them on the 1-10.

Let's suggest some.

Five to me means the book was so so, sort of a half way book, half way good, half way bad, didn't hate it, did learn a few things, had to skim, had to skip, don't recommend it to anybody else, it's OK, but not great.

Now 10 would be? The perfect book? Help me out here and we'll post the criteria.

Yes, let's do wait for the next nomination. The Non-Fiction folder has one they'd like to read, and several in the Library seconded Fran's interest in the new McCourt, so let's vote right after Thanksgiving on the February book, and we'll get a little closer to the actual reading time.

Fran, am sure glad to see you posting, don't have a problem with reading the next McCourt if it's voted in, at all. The hand thing reminds me of The Donald Trump who hates to shake hands with anybody for probably the same reason.

Ginny

I must admit I do love to post here, BUT, if I am not interested in the book, and didn't like it enough to read much more than 30 pages and the Afterword I feel like a fraud just enjoying your comments.

Please do list the criteria for rating the books #1 through #10....It would help a lot.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

What is wrong with you people? (BG) I have been having a gala old time for years!! (Was voted the wittiest girl in my HS class).

I'm waiting on "September" to be discussed, because I have had book in my "library" a long time and read it whenever it came out.

Witty Betty: hahahahah, I think the September discussion will be a good one, some very nice people there and am glad to hear you'll be in it, too.

I didn't get voted ONE THING in my high school class! Well, I lie, I was runner up Best Dressed. Shows you how great MY personality was, and it was way way way back runner up, too. Kinda like: Winner, 404, Ginny 23.

I went to those ClassMates directories on the SN Home Page and actually FOUND my old High School, and several people there from my class, including, would you believe, Best Dressed Herself. But her address has changed and it bounced. Have never been to a high school reunion, always said I wouldn't go unless teeth were capped, lost 80 lbs, so one down, anyway, and they still aren't having them.

Since we're not voting on a new selection this month, but just tabling the suggestions, A Monk Swimming and The OED book now being discussed in the Non Fiction section, as well as one Fran just mentioned The Summer Sisters , hope I've got that right, let's DO establish criteria.

I'd say 10 should be: ??? What?

I'm better with the lower numbers:

Let's say 1 would be: The Worst: Forget it

2 Would be: Awful Book: Skipped or Quit Reading it, Don't recommend it?

What else, help me out here?

Ginny

I guess according to your ratings criteria which are very helpful I would rate "The Ballad of Frankie Silver" a 2.

Actually the title is about an 8. Sounds better than it read to me anyway.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Without hurting anyone's feeling, I'd just like to say that A Monk Swimming might be beneath you sage folks. Perhaps if you check it out of the library and read a few pages you might feel more informed on whether to vote for it or not. Maybe Barnes and Noble has the first chapter printed. In other words, I think you all are so much more depthy than that book is. ["Say what you mean, Dianne!"]

I'd still like to offer Where the Road Goes by Joanne Greenberg. It has a bit of depth to plum. di

Actually that's an excellent suggestion, Di. Way back when, when we first started the Book Club Online, we all went out to the bookstores and read a chapter or two or looked the books over and saw what we'd like to nominate and read.

This is an excellent opportuinty to do the same, as we're not going to vote on our February book until right after Thanksgiving, so I'll put all the suggested books so far into the heading, and we can be looking into them (the first chapter of A Monk Swimming is NOT on B&N) so will have to have the great pleasure of going to a store in person and checking out BOOKS!! I love bookstores.

As far as beneath us? Nothing's beneath us. Anybody who would willingly slog thru that awful Liar's Club can find nothing worse! Besides, my favorite books on earth, the Lucia series, can't be considered deep unless you are a very short frog in a very shallow pool.

This is great, keep the nominations coming, and I'll get them in the heading so we can go look them up!

YAY!!

Ginny

AND shock of the world, I find that Summer Sisters is written by Judy Blume, who is famous for writing children's books, adolescent angst, but here's what it says on that:

Summer Sisters chronicles the lifelong friendship between two women, from their girlhood summers together on Martha's Vineyard to their more complicated adult relationship. Caitlin dazzled Vix from the start, sweeping her into the world of the Somers family, a world of privilege, adventure and sexual daring. Vix's bond with her 'summer' family had forever reshaped her relatioship to her own, opening doors to opportunities she had never imagined. Then, the summer she falls passionately in love, in one shattering moment on a moonswept beach, everything changes, exposing a dark undercurrent in her extraordinary friendship with Caitlin that will haunt them through the years. A riveting exploration of the choices that define our lives, of friendship and love, of the families we are born into and those we struggle to create, and a story for every woman who has ever had a friend too dangerous to forgive and too essential to forget.

I had never heard of it: that looks good , and so do the others:

If you'll look back a few posts in the Non Fiction discussion you can find out about the OED nomination, Larry did a wonderful clickable to an article on it, and Where the Road Goes looks like a winner, too:

At the center of the novel is a woman named Tig, a grandmother who chooses to leave her family for a year to join a walk across America in the spirit of her activist youth. But as she physically traverses the continent in the name of community, she finds herself negotiating the more complicated territory of familial allegiance. In a web of correspondence, her daughters, husband, and grandchildren speak to and through each other, recasting and reinterpreting events back home, revealing themselves in the telling. Through their stories, Greenberg illuminates the monumental landscape of family, her words exploring that which can be communicated to those we love and that which love unalterably obscures.



So this is getting more and more exciting, keep the nominations coming!

Ginny

Checking in late - one thing and another. I've just now finished up. On the news tonight - a story of a Republican (Byron Looper), candidate for the State Senate in Tennessee allegedly shot and killed the incumbent Democrat (Sen. Tommy Burks). There on the TV news was a TBI car. Doesn't that always happen? Of course, never heard of the TBI before reading THE BALLAD...and there it was in the news already. Can Sharyn McCrumb be far behind? Sure sounds like it has possibilities. Shades of Samuel Fleming and William Waightsall Avery!!

Well, I thought McCrumb's theme that one case revealed another was forced. I felt much more strongly that the connections were to be found in the psyche of the Arrowood character, rather than in the intrinsic facts of the two cases. I also thought that the Avery-Fleming case/chapter was, although interesting, somewhat of a throwaway - a "well, I might just take a minute here to make this point again!" Although Woodfin's comment (p. 327): "No one should hang when his offense has been committed in defense of his person or his honor" was telling and made a good point about the hypocrisy of the 'aristocracies' idea of justice for themselves, and their ideas of justice for the rabble.

The specifics of the electrocution didn't bother me - I like detail. Unfortunately, McCrumb detail, for me is fairly prosaic. There's nothing poetic about her prose - her use of language is straightforward, and although, clear, and easy to read, she's not much more than a good "storyteller" (not that there's anything wrong with that!!). She never makes me want to remember lines or phrases forever, makes me want to 'share' a particular phrase in wonderment.

Too hard on Stanton? No. I agree with her that revenge is usually the operative factor in cases like this (not closure). Of course, how can one ever put themselves in their shoes? I'd probably want revenge, too - but I'd call it that! Let's call things what they are. Closure is psychobabble for revenge…

The Celts-Roman thing left me - huh??? I'm sure it has deep meaning to people steeped in that culture but I though it out of place in the sense that it came out of left field without any other support, if you will.

About the author's idea regarding the different levels of justice for rich and poor, for connected and outsiders: this was nothing I needed convincing on. She's preaching to a true believer in me. Although I think that modern day instances of this are much more incredible, much more powerful - relating this old tale did point out that, well - we've heard this all before now, haven't we?

For me, there would have been more impact with emphasis on the latter day story - I don't quite know why.

Unanswered questions - "Who was watching Frankie scrub up the blood?" Why, Spencer in his reveries.... Quite interesting. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?? I though this was unique for the author in this novel.

Questions 7-8: learned nothing, moderately pleasant experience. Which, along with my earlier thought on her writing style, is why I'd score this book at about a 6.5 (an Olympic diving difficulty of only 7)…

But, hey. This was great fun. Thank you all for your postings and thoughts - what a great way to read a book - any old book!!! You all are a 10 (I just wish there was more of 'ya). Don't know whether I'll try Tuscan…, I'm skeptical that it's for me. I'll have to check it out.

Charlie.

Charles, I enjoy reading your comments as well as the book!! Maybe better, back later to respond, I thought somebody different was watching her wipe up the blood!!

Three more books nominated by mail and all three look wonderful. I'm going to put them in the heading, and then work today on clickables which will take you to a review of the books when you click on them. Combined with our on site research, our Thanksgiving selection will have probably the MOST put into it we've ever had.

Here they are:

Perfect Agreement by Michael Downing: NY Times highly recommended book:

Synopsis: Mark Sternum's meticulously constructed world is nearly destroyed when he fails a woman in one of his college classes and is accused of 'prejudism.' When his case makes national headlines, Mark receives an unexpected visit from his father, Thomas -- long believed dead. Mark falls under his spell, casting aside doubt and a perfectly orchestrated life in favor of a joy he never thought possible.

Also: A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Walter Michael Dorris:

Synopsis:

From Library Journal: A powerful novel of three generations of American Indian women, each seeking her own identity while forever cognizant of family responsibilities, loyalty, and love. Rayona, half-Indian half-black daughter of Christine, reacts to feelings of rejection and abandonment by running away, not knowing that her mother had acted in a similar fashion some 15 years before. But family ties draw Rayona hometo the Montana reservationas they drew Christine, and as they had drawn Ida many years earlier. As the three recount their lives, often repeating incidents but adding new perspectives, a total picture emerges. The result is a beautifully passionate first novel reminiscent of Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and The Beet Queen , but a strong work which should be read and enjoyed for its own merits. Highly recommended. Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

And last but not least:

Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg

Synopsis:

The bestselling author of Talk Before Sleep and Range of Motion gives readers a new novel--an unforgettable story of an external journey tha t leads to inner revelation. Uncomfortable with the fit of her life, now that she's in the middle of it, Nan gets into the car and drives across the country on back roads, stopping to talk to people--and confronting topics long overdue for her attention.

Shortly after she turns 50, a woman runs away to find herself. As she drives across the country following the moon, Nan keeps a journal and writes letters, appraising her husband and her daughter of her progress, though not of her romance.

Back in a mo,

Ginny

I rated the book only a 2, the title an 8, but my friends your discussion was a 10+. That is why it really matters little to me whether I read the book or not.....Your discussion of it is often the best part of the book. Of course it has a lot more meaning if I do read the book. We will certainly never all agree on the worthiness of a certain book, but often with the busy lives we all lead a book of shallow depth is just what I need at the time. It is just "eye candy", not too nourishing, but fun.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Hey, Everybody! Check this out! ???

Back tomorrow, lots of reactions to your remarks,

Ginny

DREAMS n' BLACKBERRIES Remember Frankie's dream about Charlie picking Blackberries for Frankie...he bites into them...juice runs down his chin which turns into blood. Blackberries. His last meal. Frankie had a slice on the way to the gallows. Harkryders last meal included a slice of Blackberry Pie. YUM!! The dream changes and Frankie's washing white linen in the creek. "Someone is watching. It is not Charlie." Spencer dozes off in Church. He's in that place between dreams and waking. That place where your mind somehow connects to the dreamworld without being in it. A girl washes a blood-stained white cloth in a stream. It's Frankie. He cannot approach, he cannot speak. HE CANNOT HELP HER. There is only redemption through BLACKBERRY PIE!! "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb"? "They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Revelations 7:14)If you're dying to hear the midi version : http://tch.simplenet.com/htm/washedit.htm There's even an "American Pie (not necessarily Blackberry)and the Armageddon Bible Prophecy Home Page: http://web2.airmail.net/rotal2/ampi.html complete with a verse by verse rendering of the Don Mclean song in Revelations (including lots of Thunder and Fire Breathing Dragons and B-52 Bombers and God's arma a'wavin') This is truly one of the scariest places I've ever visited on the Internet. DO NOT GO THERE!!!

Chalres, I am truly astounded! Blackberries, passed over them like a blip in the night. Blackberries, symbolism, thanks so much for that.

Here I was pouring over Barbara and her son and the "butchering" while Frankie visited the kin folk, not seeing any kind of revelation of secret watching, and PRESTO! there you are.

Amazing, well done!

Ginny

Will have to say Ballad of Frankie Silver rates high in my list of least favorite books! I'll give it a 2.

I've just read some reviews of "A Monk Swimming" and they range all over the place from one star to 4 stars, so you will have a lot to chose from. However....in case you haven't heard here is to what the title refers.

I am not Catholic, and don't have the book in front of me, but it's close. While saying the rosary as a child Malachy instead of saying "Blessed are't thou amonst women" says..."Blessed are't thou a monk's swimming".

I thought that was pretty funny.

Speak to you soon.....Love, Fran

Have certainly joined in late but did enjoy this book. I would rate it an seven based on the description of Frankie (she became a visual for me) and of the rules and traditions of her culture base. My single greatest problem was WHO helped her on the night of the killing and WHY. Didn't they know the trail would lead to the one person who was with him? Who and their motivation seemed hazy to me. It's as if a bad situation was made worse by attemped and careless cover-up. If these questions have been asked previously, I apologize. Irene

Irene! I was just wondering where you were, and there you ARE! I did think that section was pretty well done. I mean, here you have killed a person: WHAT will you do with the body? The explanation was given that Barbara had done lots of "buchering" (excuse the topic here) and so she could do the dirty work, but really, surely there's a difference. Anyway, I agree, not too much probing of the real facts by the officials, some of that was lost in Gaither's posturing, tho, and may have been where I "skipped."

When you think of this "ancient" time frame, 160 some? years ago, and you may have a relative in their 90's, I don't think people were that different, then or now.

There'a a book called Wisconsin Death Trip which consists of headings and newspaper accounts from the early days of the country, I want to say the 19th century? And I guess all it proves is that there's nothing new under the sun, if anything, the stories were more shocking. Cutting into pieces, you name it, it's there.

I saw in another folder, Irene, that you're about to embark on an adventure in the mountains! How exciting, have you read Under the Tuscan Sun? They're on an adventure, too, in Italy. I love new beginings, and hope you'll be able to keep your modem???? We'll want to hear all about it.

Our Helen has the Tuscan book, is off to Florida, I believe, but will rejoin us on the 8th, our Fran is off on a cruise, faithfully taking Tuscan with her, hope some of you can get the book as it's a good book, and please keep the nominations coming in here.

Now, Ed mentioned in another folder the Longiture by Sobel, one of our early nominations, he said it was great. I know it is short, and a true story, do any of you want to nominate it again?

Ginny

Rushing in to say:

Those of you who liked Barbara Kingsolver's book of essays High Tide in Tuscon which we all did, and which we read some time ago in the Book Club Online, may be interested to hear she has a new book out and will be interviewed tonight at 7pm on our own Barnes & Noble Bookstore site: so do go watch, if interested.

Ginny

I think I sent in a number of rating some time ago, but that might have been before it was being noted. I have forgotten what number I gave, but whatever, if you need another, I'd say 4 (1-10, 10 being best).

I'm in the Bookstore now and nobody whatsoever is asking Mrs. Kingsolver any questions. We must watch the schedules, they've got John Updike coming up and Mary Higgins Clark as well as Uncle Matty, the dog trainer. We need to watch all the chat rooms for authors, remember once how we got some of our questions answered?

So far, Frances Mayes and Sharyn McCrumb are not coming up for Chats, but we can keep watching. Wish I had read Kingsolver's latest, not many questions at all.

Ginny

Charles, what an interesting interpretation of the blackberries that are scattered throughout the story. My reaction was that berry pie was as common in the Carolinas as cherry pie is in Michigan. Certainly a luscious fruit that grew wild and provided a welcome touch of sweetness in a deprived existence would have been something that Frankie could daydream about. You're correct about the closeness of berry juice to blood in dreams, just as anything pleasant often turns frighteningly into something evil and forbidden. Temptingly berry-stained lips occur often when a love scene warms up; and remember the sinister and sensuous use of smeared fruit in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"? And here we are, attributing such a level of sensitive symbolism to poor Sharyn McCrumb. But I have to say I draw the line at "American Pie." A different idea entirely, I thought.

Apropos of the ratings problem, I can't let the subject drop without entering a plea: I entreat you all, I plead piteously, I go down on my arthritic knees to beg you, not to emulate the hundred-best-anything disease and try to "define" ratings of 1, 2, 3, or 1000. There are many ways of evaluating a whole piece of writing; it's known in the teacher business as holistic (get it?) evaluation.

Ros

AHA!! Our Ros is back and in good form, too, I see, arthritic knees and all. Do you know, as an aside, the only place I could ever find a recipe for fresh berry pie was in that awful The Joy of Cooking ?

Now why awful, you say?

Don't you think the "Cockaigne" stuff a bit, just a tiny bit pretentious? Why do we hate pretention so?

As the only member of my family raised in the North, I was always amazed to come South and find, in my youth, such startling observations as (on a beautiful girl) "Yes, she's pretty, but she knows it, too."

HAH?? One obviously means here she's vain and not unassuming, I guess. Complicated thing, some of our society. Let's face it, folks, if you're gorgeous, you're gorgeous. Kind of like the "smart" problem some women have had.

Anyway, "blackberry pie on the Fourth of July" a tradition here for years. Agree about "American Pie," the author of that comparison must have eaten some cheese before retiring.

Ginny

Hi Folks,

SeniorNet will be down tonight for about 1/2hr to and hour. Read Marcie's message here

Oh please do drop in the Great Books site and register your vote if you haven't done so yet! There is a tie at the moment!

We take it nice and slooow...a chapter or two a week...and have great fun getting to know one another as we savor the books we never really got into before!



You'll be pleasantly surprised, and certainly very welcome!

The more the merrier!!! Great Books Vote!

Joan

Well, it's Halloween, and I hope you all are having a nice quiet evening? We've not had a Trick or Treater here for 18 years, I'd probably fall off the hill if one came trudging up.

I agree with all of you, this WAS a great experience, and I truly enjoyed each and every comment you made. YOU all MADE it true that our discussion can overcome ANY book.

Here are our ratings of the book and the total: if I left off your name, please squawk!!

Ros: 7
Jeryn: 8
Helen: 6
Ginny: 5
Fran: 2
Charles: 6.5
Nettie: 2
Irene: 7
Betty: 4
____________

TOTAL: 47.5

RATING: 5.2.....I think that's about right, too.

If any of you would like to post YOUR review of this book, look in our Bookstore at the top of the page, do a SEARCH for The Ballad of Frankie Silver, and follow the directions for writing your own review. If you put seniornet.org Book Groups on it somewhere, then people will be able to find us, we're pretty great!

Thank you all for such a great thorough discussion and all you brought to it, I got SO much out of it.

THIS discussion is now closed, do hope to see you in Under The Tuscan Sun !!

Ginny