The Songcatcher

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Summary: Try the audio version to hear the song "Rowan Stave"
Review: Firstly, readers should know that this is NOT the book that the recent movie "Songcatcher" is based on. That's what I thought when I picked up the audio version, and boy was I confused for the first couple hours.

Secondly, the audio version contains lovely sung versions of the pivotal song "The Rowan Stave", which is not a real vintage song but instead a facsimile created by the author and some musician friends. (It's available along with other period music from the book on CD.) However, it's so beautifully done that it is very convincing as a genuine 18th century folk ballad.

The audio version also includes an afterword by Sharyn McCrumb that explains that the story of Malcolm McQuarry is an actual history of her own distant relative coming to the Appalachians in the mid-1800s. It's such an incredible story that during the reading, I had dismissed it as somewhat fantastic, which shows you that truth is often stranger than fiction.

I had the priviledge of hearing this tape during a long drive through W. Virginia and Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. A perfect setting! Although somewhat overlong and possibly 2-3 too many characters and plot strings to be a real classic, it's still a "good read" and the music very haunting. A part of our history and cultural heritage that is much overlooked by those of us who live in other parts of the US. It definitely made me want to know more about this area and it's history, and I was sorry when it ended.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting, lyrical
Review: From the first page of this book Sharyn McCrumb gets her hooks into the reader and doesn't let you go.

There are many reasons why I shouldn't have liked this book, and yet I did. Normally I won't read a book that has more than two or three viewpoint characters. This book had more than a dozen narrators, but such is McCrumb's talent that each character has a unique voice and point of view so you aren't jarred by the transitions.

There is no mystery in here per se, though the book is shelved in the mystery section. And the action switches between past and present, tracing one family through the generations while events in the present unfold over the course of a few days.

The real star of this book is the Appalachin setting, which McCrumb writes about lovingly but without sentimentality. Every time I read one of her books I feel as if I had spent that time in her beloved mountains, meeting some of the wonderful and quirky characters who fill her stories.

A great read. It's a treat to watch how McCrumb continues to grow as a writer in each of her books.

Rating:
Summary: Mountain magic!
Review: I first heard about Sharyn McCrumb at a Split Rock writers' workshop in Duluth. The first book of hers I read was ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL. I'm always looking for a writer who displays some originality and the title seemed appropriate. It wasn't. You see, there are two Sharyn McCrumbs. One writes Elizabeth McPherson goofiness about Star Trek conventioneers, the other Spencer Arroway/Nora Bonesteel Appalachian magic.
THE HANGMAN'S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER proved to be one of these. I was hooked. Can't wait for the next one. If you're looking for ambience, you'll find it here. Appalachian history and myth, a bit of mysticism. Nora Boonsteel is an old lady who can see into the future, but she acts as though it's just a genetic trait she's a little ashamed of. She has "the sight"; everybody in the North Carolina hills knows it and they believe it. So will you.
In SONGCATCHER, Sheriff Spencer Arroway takes a back seat to folksinger Lark McCourry who's in search of The Rowan Stave, a folk song that's been handed down in her family for centuries. She knows a little of it: Upon the hill above the kirk at moon rise she did stand, To tend her sheep that Samhain eve, with rowan staff in hand. And where she's been and what she's seen, no living soul may know, and when she's come back home, she will be changed-oh!
We are taken all the way back to 1759 when the first Malcolm MacQuarry comes to America, shanghaied from the Scottish island of Islay. We get a glimpse of the frontier North Carolina, The Civil War, and other historical eras, rather like James Michener. Each generation passes along The Rowan Stave up to Lark's father, a solitary, unfriendly man, with whom Lark has severed relations.
I made it all the way to page 219 before discovering I was missing the last thirty pages or so. Yeah, just like the Shaq commericial where his dog eats the last page of his mystery. So, this one lost some of its vigor, but that's not Sharyn McCrumb's fault. If this is the first one of the Nora Bonesteel novels you've read, you'll love it. If not, it's on the 'B' list.

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Summary: Engrossing!
Review: I found THE SONGCATCHER, Sharyn McCrumb's latest ballad novel, so very engrossing I read it all in one sitting. As with most of McCrumb's ballad novels, it's not a mystery. Instead, it's a study of human relationships.

The usual ballad characters (Nora Bonesteel, Sheriff Arrowood, Martha Ayers and Joe LaDonne) are back, although they remain in the background for most of the book. In fact, there isn't one main character. Instead we follow a song through each generation of the McCourry family, starting in 1751 when young Malcolm McCourry is kidnapped from his home in Scotland and is pressed into service on a ship. We follow Malcolm to America, where he settles and spawns a dynasty in the Tennessee/North Carolina area. With him he brings his family curse (the firstborn child will never be best loved; another will always supplant him) and the family's special song. We then follow each succeeding generation as they suffer under this curse but still pass on Malcolm's song. It is in the present-day generation that we meet Lark McCourry, a country singer who has only a vague memory of her family song. Long estranged from her father, Lark returns home to attend his deathbed and seek out this elusive song for her next album.

While well worth reading, THE SONGCATCHER isn't Ms. McCrumb's best work. I think the book suffers from the lack of a major protagonist, which is why I gave it only 4 stars. However, it is still a wonderful study of human relationships, and I expect most readers will be caught up in the book's magical spell.

Rating:
Summary: Good read, but not the best intro to McCrumb
Review: McCrumb's newest paperback is a ramblin' book. Its chapters form a mountain switchback. The odd chapters tell an episodic story set in the present, about rising country singer Lark McCourry , her difficult father, and her attempt to track down an old ballad about a graveyard and a rowan stave, of which she can remember only the one-line chorus: "And when she comes back, she will be changed-oh." The even chapters trace the progress of the song from Scotland in the mid-1700s to the present, through a long line of Lark's ancestors (each of whom, as it happens, is one of Sharyn McCrumb's real ancestors.)

"The Songcatcher" affords many small pleasures and no sweeping ones. There's the local southern Appalachian color, and McCrumb's evident pride in it, particularly the constant sprinkling of unexpected hill country expressions (I liked "poor as Job's turkey", and I am not likely soon to forget the significance of Matthew 23:25). There are numerous interesting characters, though I felt only Malcolm McCourry, the founder of the line, was fully drawn and rounded. The ballad itself, which McCrumb wrote for the book, is as haunting and authentically folkwise as anything in Childe, and I wish the music came with it. What seemed to be missing was any deep passion, or any strong narrative drive. I was always happy to be reading along, but never dying to know what would happen next.

For members of McCrumb's extended family, this volume is bound to seem a treasure trove. The same may be true for those who have ever been bitten (as I never have) by the genealogy bug; and for those who have read enough of her previous novels to feel, as one might easily come to feel, that the author is an old friend. For the rest of us, this is a pleasant enough read, but probably the wrong place to start in on her works. Several of her previous Appalachian sagas have all the strengths of this one, and none of its weaknesses, and stand better on their own. The earlier books will also introduce you to a number of the local constabulary and eccentrics, with whose lives and habits this volume seems to assume you are already familiar.