Candace G. (Ogre) reviewed on + 1568 more book reviews
In some ways this book is an outline of the history of mountain music. In other ways it is a tragedy, as a husband tries to force a woman to forego parts of her very self. But in any way, it's a good story!
FROM BACK COVER: She writes lyric, luminous prose; her craft is so strong it becomes transparent, and, like the best of storytellers, she knows how to get out of the way so that the story can tell itself. SAN FRANCISCO
CHRONICLE
Judging fiddle music to be the voice of the Devil laughing, preacher's son Moses Bailey forbade his fiddle-loving wife, Kate Malone, the music she was raised on in the Virginia hills. She bore him three children, tending their lonesome cabin, while Moses tramped the countryside searching in vane for God. But Kate's heritage proved too strong, and she soon began fiddling away for the chidren behind her husband's back...
This is the stuff of family legend, indedd the very soul of Lee Smith's beautifully told saga about a Southern singing family down through the ages...
Smith proves again in THE DEVIL'S DREAM her keen ear for oral history as she pushes her extraordinary gift to new limits, switching deftly and imperceptibly from voice to voice to resounding voice.
FROM BACK COVER: She writes lyric, luminous prose; her craft is so strong it becomes transparent, and, like the best of storytellers, she knows how to get out of the way so that the story can tell itself. SAN FRANCISCO
CHRONICLE
Judging fiddle music to be the voice of the Devil laughing, preacher's son Moses Bailey forbade his fiddle-loving wife, Kate Malone, the music she was raised on in the Virginia hills. She bore him three children, tending their lonesome cabin, while Moses tramped the countryside searching in vane for God. But Kate's heritage proved too strong, and she soon began fiddling away for the chidren behind her husband's back...
This is the stuff of family legend, indedd the very soul of Lee Smith's beautifully told saga about a Southern singing family down through the ages...
Smith proves again in THE DEVIL'S DREAM her keen ear for oral history as she pushes her extraordinary gift to new limits, switching deftly and imperceptibly from voice to voice to resounding voice.
