Helpful Score: 1
I fell in love with Donna Everhart's writing style a couple of years ago when I read her book THE FORGIVING KIND. She captures the spirit of the American South in such a way that you can feel the torturous heat and humidity, taste the coolness of a glass of sweet tea, and hear the cicadas on a drowsy early evening.
I enjoy historical fiction so when I discovered her newest book was set in southern Georgia and described the life of turpentiners I was really intrigued. Living in central Georgia I had heard a bit about this industryâ¦enough to maybe fill a thimble.
Set during the Depression, Everhart brought the characters to life as I read. I felt like I was part of their life. There were the power-hungry, thoroughly mean men like Crow and Otis. But then there were the courageous âsaintsâ like Del, Rae Lynn, and Cornelia.
A story of courage, survival, and friendship sure to linger in my mind for some time. I am looking forward to discussing this book in my book club.
If you enjoyed Kristin Hannah's THE FOUR WINDS, you would probably enjoy this book also.
I enjoy historical fiction so when I discovered her newest book was set in southern Georgia and described the life of turpentiners I was really intrigued. Living in central Georgia I had heard a bit about this industryâ¦enough to maybe fill a thimble.
Set during the Depression, Everhart brought the characters to life as I read. I felt like I was part of their life. There were the power-hungry, thoroughly mean men like Crow and Otis. But then there were the courageous âsaintsâ like Del, Rae Lynn, and Cornelia.
A story of courage, survival, and friendship sure to linger in my mind for some time. I am looking forward to discussing this book in my book club.
If you enjoyed Kristin Hannah's THE FOUR WINDS, you would probably enjoy this book also.
Helpful Score: 1
The novel essentially tells the story of two different characters, Del Reese, a womanizing wanderer who ends up in a turpentine camp after a brush with death, which changes him, and who is himself subjected to some of the harsh treatment dealt out to the other workers in the camp, most of whom are black. The book does a good job of describing conditions in such a camp, which was essentially a plantation, where workers were brutally and occasionally fatally punished for not making quota or for the most minor infractions with unimaginable brutality, including being locked in a sweatbox, whipped, and hunted down with dogs, should they have the audacity to quit and attempt to leave. Seventy years after slavery, workers during this period were essentially considered as such, property of the turpentine "plantation," locked into perpetual bondage to the company store, financially, if not legally. Del finds out the hard way that working with this crew subjects him to exactly the same treatment by the brutal overseer whose word is law, apparently without the knowledge of the actual company owner.
Rae Lynn, the second character, doesn't have it much better. After the untimely death of her husband, having nowhere else to go, after having been blackmailed by another despicable character who treats other human beings like pieces of property, or meat, she attempts to essentially impersonate her husband and gets a job in the turpentine camp, where she is likewise subjected to brutal treatment at the hands of a cruel foreman, until they find out her secret. Abuse of women is apparently nothing out of the ordinary here: her savior, Cornelia, is also brutalized, by her vicious husband who tortures her.
I won't give away the ending, but this isn't a cheery novel in general: perhaps poignant is the best way to describe it. The characters overcome their obstacles eventually, but I think the real value of the book is to make readers appreciate what their ancestors really did go through, during this period and others, when survival was often in doubt. The story is an interesting one, and you will definitely learn something, but it often lags in places. Condensing it and tightening up the prose would have made it better. That said, however, these types of books, depressing though they may be at times, does make me appreciate my ancestors, some of whom didn't have it much better than what is depicted here, growing up in the rural south, often being on the move, going from place to place in search of work to feed an ever-growing family. It makes our modern "depression," and our modern problems, seem trivial in comparison.
Rae Lynn, the second character, doesn't have it much better. After the untimely death of her husband, having nowhere else to go, after having been blackmailed by another despicable character who treats other human beings like pieces of property, or meat, she attempts to essentially impersonate her husband and gets a job in the turpentine camp, where she is likewise subjected to brutal treatment at the hands of a cruel foreman, until they find out her secret. Abuse of women is apparently nothing out of the ordinary here: her savior, Cornelia, is also brutalized, by her vicious husband who tortures her.
I won't give away the ending, but this isn't a cheery novel in general: perhaps poignant is the best way to describe it. The characters overcome their obstacles eventually, but I think the real value of the book is to make readers appreciate what their ancestors really did go through, during this period and others, when survival was often in doubt. The story is an interesting one, and you will definitely learn something, but it often lags in places. Condensing it and tightening up the prose would have made it better. That said, however, these types of books, depressing though they may be at times, does make me appreciate my ancestors, some of whom didn't have it much better than what is depicted here, growing up in the rural south, often being on the move, going from place to place in search of work to feed an ever-growing family. It makes our modern "depression," and our modern problems, seem trivial in comparison.
