The Unquiet Grave
The first Sharyn McCrumb novel I read was THE HANGMAN'S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER, part of her Appalachian ballad series, featuring Sheriff Spencer Arrowwood and Nora Bonesteel, an old woman who had the gift of sight. She was a “seer”; she could see into the future. I was hooked, but gradually the stories became more about Nora Bonesteel and the sheriff disappeared. These days McCrumb picks a strange historical happening and fictionalizes it. But she's till writing about the hill people.
THE UNQUIET GRAVE is set in two different era, 1897 and 1930. In 1897, Zona Heaster is murdered by her husband after only a few months of marriage. But she returns as a ghost and tells her mother what her husband did to her. She goes to the county prosecutor and tells him what she saw. Remarkably he believes her, and they dig up the body; Zona had a broken neck as well as finger marks around her neck. This is one of the holes in the story. The doctor who had been called to the scene was not allowed to take a close look at the body as her husband hovered over her.
Then we move ahead to 1930 at the colored asylum for the insane where we meet James P.D. Gardner who defended the husband as second chair. Dr. James Boozer is a psychiatrist at the asylum. The only reason Gardner is there is because he tried to commit suicide after losing his second wife. He tells Boozer about the case where a ghost testified against her murdering husband.
Okay, was there a real case? McCrumb says “The Greenbrier Ghost is West Virginia's best-known tale of the supernatural, but the incident has always been treated as folklore, a jumble of hearsay and supposition built on a handful of facts. McCrumb's original source was from a book of folklore that took up a page and a half, but by the time she was finished researching the incident she had a file of documents six inches thick. The implication is that these census records, birth and death certificates, maps and photographs fired her imagination and THE UNQUIET GRAVE is the result.
I think McCrumb would do herself a service if she brought back the sheriff and Nora Bonesteel. The characters in THE UNQUIET GRAVE are not as vivid as the lawman and the old lady, and some of the plot is just unbelievable as was the part about the county prosecutor agreeing to dig up Zona Heaster based on her mother's claim that she appeared to her as a ghost.
THE UNQUIET GRAVE is set in two different era, 1897 and 1930. In 1897, Zona Heaster is murdered by her husband after only a few months of marriage. But she returns as a ghost and tells her mother what her husband did to her. She goes to the county prosecutor and tells him what she saw. Remarkably he believes her, and they dig up the body; Zona had a broken neck as well as finger marks around her neck. This is one of the holes in the story. The doctor who had been called to the scene was not allowed to take a close look at the body as her husband hovered over her.
Then we move ahead to 1930 at the colored asylum for the insane where we meet James P.D. Gardner who defended the husband as second chair. Dr. James Boozer is a psychiatrist at the asylum. The only reason Gardner is there is because he tried to commit suicide after losing his second wife. He tells Boozer about the case where a ghost testified against her murdering husband.
Okay, was there a real case? McCrumb says “The Greenbrier Ghost is West Virginia's best-known tale of the supernatural, but the incident has always been treated as folklore, a jumble of hearsay and supposition built on a handful of facts. McCrumb's original source was from a book of folklore that took up a page and a half, but by the time she was finished researching the incident she had a file of documents six inches thick. The implication is that these census records, birth and death certificates, maps and photographs fired her imagination and THE UNQUIET GRAVE is the result.
I think McCrumb would do herself a service if she brought back the sheriff and Nora Bonesteel. The characters in THE UNQUIET GRAVE are not as vivid as the lawman and the old lady, and some of the plot is just unbelievable as was the part about the county prosecutor agreeing to dig up Zona Heaster based on her mother's claim that she appeared to her as a ghost.
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