The Decatur Road

by Joe Coomer

The Decatur Road a Novel of the Appalachian Hill Country.

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Joe Coomer is a fiction and nonfiction writer who lives outside of Fort Worth, Texas, and on the coast of Maine. He "spends his winters in Springtown, Texas, where he runs a pair of large antique malls. He lives in a fairly new Victorian house that he spent a year and a half building in the late eighties, a project he wrote about in Dream House [1991]. His wife, Isabelle Tokumaru, runs her paintings conservation practice in the third story, while he writes novels in the kitchen, where the food is close. Summers, they live in Stonington, Maine, an active fishing village on the coast. When the weather's nice, he takes his old motor sailer, "Yonder", on day sails and cruises down east. He chronicled her purchase, restoration, and his stupidities at sea in Sailing in a Spoonful of Water [1997]."

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this novel in the 1980s and I have reread it more times than any other book. It is a very simple story about a couple that meet, marry, raise children and die in the tobacco farming region of Appalachia. In between the chapters, it tells a story of the Decatur Road and how it changes over time - from rutted muddy track to pavement and eventually shiny diners and, finally, even the shiny diners are abandoned. The metaphors matter but aren't overdrawn. The writing is simple. All the people in the book are alive to me - particularly the basic kindness of the two main characters.

Yes. Read it!

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am still obsessed with this book years now after I found my first copy in Columbus Ohio. I pick it up and the cadence of the words, like the moist heavy air of an August day, just slows me down and I settle in for a walk along the Decatur Road. I own two paperbacks and three hardbacks of this book and that is after I begrudgingly let one go to a friend. Some day I will have collected enough copies of this now-out-of-print wonder to offer it as a book club selection.

[Nd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an impressive portrait of life along the Decatur Road in rural Appalachia. It began in the 1920s with a specific courtship and the simplistic yet intricate life of that family, somewhat difficult to reach at the end of the Decatur Road. It was interspersed with essential types of other life around the area, both travelers and neighbors, up to and including a few non-human entities like the leg-nipping dog. Coomer's debut in 1983 is a very nice piece of southern literature.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is very simply written but very moving. It tells two parallel stories--the marriage of Mitchell and Jenny and the story of the road they live on in the Appalachian Mountains. The chapters alternate but this is not confusing in any way and the chapters about the road help deepen the story of the couple and their changing lives. This is a book about love, happiness, sadness, and marriage told through one couple's life.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved some things about this book. I loved Mitchell and Jenny. I loved the story of their lives. This book is the story of the Decatur Road over the years. As the road ages and changes, so do Mitchell and Jenny. What threw me off about the book, was a bunch of little stories that occur on the Decatur Road, but don't directly connect to Mitchell and Jenny. The end of this book as awesome. I loved the way everything ties up even though it was sad.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the cadence of this book. It was the book that turned me into a Coomer fan for life. I still reread the opening pages everyone so often for the sheer joy of it. I would use it as a book club selection if it were still in print. If you see a copy somewhere, glom onto it! Actualy read it in the paperback format first then searched out a hadback copy for my collection.

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little novel about a couple in Appalachia. Traces them from courtship through 50 years of marriage. Good descriptive writing style. "It's all to do with making the ordinary mystical and the mystical ordinary." A line from the book that describes the book pretty well. Ordinary, everyday stuff of life, but such emotional richness.

[Linda Branham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Joe Coomer. This story is a classic. It is a story of Appalachia and the Decatur Road. How it changes over time... and the people along with it. The life a young couple just starting out ... and throughout their life. It's not exciting and nail biting... it's "real"

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

i enjoyed it because i'm fond of reading about appalachia. would be interested in reading more by
this author. his style is sparse and the line drawings that were in the beginning of each chapter
matched the story well.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who the hell is this guy, Joe Coomer? And where has he been all my life?

[Dennis Whittle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh boy I love this book. It is a manual for life, and a manual for marriage.

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was confusing, knowing who is talking. I asked my wife to read it.

[Doreen Legault · Rating 4 out of 5]

can't wait to read more from this author.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't connect with the plot or the characters

[Terry Maloney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting first book for this author. I liked it, but not as much as some of his others