false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170900137m/77398.jpg 77398 19 <b>Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2000:</b> Robert Morgan's <I>Gap Creek</I> opens with one wrenching death and ends with another. In between, this novel of turn-of-the-century Appalachian life works in fire, flood, swindlers, sickness, and starvation--a truly biblical assortment of plagues, all visited on the sturdy shoulders of 17-year-old Julie Harmon. "Human life don't mean a thing in this world," she concludes. And who could blame her? "People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn't mean a thing.... The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business." For Julie, that business is hard physical labor. Fortunately, she's fully capable of working "like a man"--splitting and hauling wood, butchering hogs, rendering lard, planting crops, and taking care of the stock. Even when Julie meets and marries handsome young Hank Richards, there's no happily-ever-after in store. Nothing comes easy in Julie Harmon's world, and their first year together is no exception. <p> Throughout the novel, Morgan chronicles Julie's trials in prose of great dignity and clarity, capturing the rhythms of North Carolina speech by using only the subtlest of inflections. Clearly the author has done his research too--the descriptions of physical labor practically leap off the page. (Suffice to say, you'll learn far more about hog slaughtering than you ever dreamed of knowing.) Yet he resists the temptation to make his long-suffering characters into saints. Julie simmers with resentment at being her family's workhorse, and Hank flies into a helpless rage whenever he feels that his authority is questioned. In novels like <I>The Truest Pleasure</I> and <I>The Hinterlands</I>, Morgan proved his ability to create memorable heroines. In <I>Gap Creek</I>, he writes with great feeling--but not a touch of sentimentality--about a life Julie aptly calls "both simple and hard." 879027 1999 Gap Creek : The Story Of A Marriage (Oprah's Book Club) total:3451|5:497|4:1088|3:1308|2:438|1:120| 3451 11757 4381 411 2 2 false true Wed Apr 09 06:24:04 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 20:22:13 -0700 2008 Oprah Book Club juggernaut alongside Faulkner, because Morgan is trying for the Faulkner unreliable narrator, first-person regional dialect. I don't think he's entirely successful, though.

The dust jacket let us know he's from North Ca...more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 04 17:53:26 -0800 2007 Mon Jan 14 19:49:51 -0800 2008 I really enjoyed how Julie, the main character just gets things done whether she wants to or not. I, on the other hand, cannot be like...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Mar 21 20:12:24 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 21 12:15:50 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 21 20:12:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Tue Aug 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 03:49:02 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 12:25:26 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 11:04:54 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 11:26:44 -0800 2008
His writing is very poetical and descriptive, with an almost musical lilt to some of his writing. Add to that the country way of speaking that le...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Nov 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Sep 13 21:08:23 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 19 09:28:14 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 1 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sat Jan 24 12:20:40 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 12:24:51 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Thu Jan 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 14:27:59 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 15:21:30 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Dec 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 31 12:47:58 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 31 12:56:17 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 21 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 11:33:43 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 23 06:46:23 -0800 2009 ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Jan 20 18:12:12 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 18:20:35 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Dec 28 20:28:02 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 31 09:53:30 -0800 2008 It was the brightest day you ever seen outside, bright as only early fall can be. The grass and leaves on the trees and even the bare dirt appeared to sparkle. I don't know if it was the light, or the fact that I was falling in love, that made everything shine. The world was lit in a new way, and I ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Nov 25 13:55:42 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 25 14:02:23 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Sep 17 18:10:52 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 17 18:12:08 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 05 20:24:17 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 20:24:17 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 18:38:21 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 18:54:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Nov 28 21:10:52 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 02 05:23:07 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false true Thu Apr 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 06:56:43 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 24 05:16:13 -0700 2009
I found the voice slightly irritating wiht its smary inflections and accent, and you could tell sometimes where the reader took a break from recording as the voice would change s...more...]]> 5 0 false true Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Tue Apr 14 16:37:34 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 16:48:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false true Sat Jul 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 24 09:25:34 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 16:32:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=77398