Devil's Dream

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, but somewhat familiar read...
Review: "The Devil's Dream" was a wonderful read. The book flowed along just marvelously over 150 years of the lives of an Appalachian family (a family tree is provided at the front of the book and should be referenced often to keep names and lineages straight). It begins and ends with a popular Nashville star, holding a press conference announcing a reunion album featuring her musical family. Between these "bookends" lies her family's story, beginning with a nineteenth century backwoods woman who hides her fiddle-playing from her fundamentalist husband. Down through the generations, the music of the Appalachian region impacts the family members in various and great ways, and much of the story is told through the eyes of these characters. While many authors would not succeed at making so many characters distinctly different, Lee Smith does. Such vivid pictures are painted that it is easy for the reader to picture Grassy Creek and all its residents in their mind. Even for those who are not "country" fans, the music of the Bailey family will come alive through the lyrics, song titles, and references that are scattered through the book.

On a sourer note, I found a few parts of this book extremely familiar - for example, many details of R.C. and Lucie's courtship very nearly mirror those surrounding that of A.P. and Sara Carter, of The Carter Family. Other events, details, and characters may also bear strong resemblances to "real-life" ones. This doesn't really take AWAY from the book unless you notice these "coincidences," or unless you've read this review and I've ruined it for you. So, I recommend also reading "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone," a wonderful biography of The Carter Family.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, but somewhat familiar read...
Review: "The Devil's Dream" was a wonderful read. The book flowed along just marvelously over 150 years of the lives of an Appalachian family (a family tree is provided at the front of the book and should be referenced often to keep names and lineages straight). It begins and ends with a popular Nashville star, holding a press conference announcing a reunion album featuring her musical family. Between these "bookends" lies her family's story, beginning with a nineteenth century backwoods woman who hides her fiddle-playing from her fundamentalist husband. Down through the generations, the music of the Appalachian region impacts the family members in various and great ways, and much of the story is told through the eyes of these characters. While many authors would not succeed at making so many characters distinctly different, Lee Smith does. Such vivid pictures are painted that it is easy for the reader to picture Grassy Creek and all its residents in their mind. Even for those who are not "country" fans, the music of the Bailey family will come alive through the lyrics, song titles, and references that are scattered through the book.

On a sourer note, I found a few parts of this book extremely familiar - for example, many details of R.C. and Lucie's courtship very nearly mirror those surrounding that of A.P. and Sara Carter, of The Carter Family. Other events, details, and characters may also bear strong resemblances to "real-life" ones. This doesn't really take AWAY from the book unless you notice these "coincidences," or unless you've read this review and I've ruined it for you. So, I recommend also reading "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone," a wonderful biography of The Carter Family.

Rating:
Summary: Vividly written and alive
Review: This book is, along with P. F. Kluge's novel "Eddie and the Cruisers," possibly the best novel about what music means and where it comes from that I've read. The sense of time and place is unerringly evoked, the characters are simultaneously archetypal and idiosynchratic, and the overlap of both generations and musical styles makes a rich, rewarding experience. Really, really top-notch stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Vividly written and alive
Review: This book is, along with P. F. Kluge's novel "Eddie and the Cruisers," possibly the best novel about what music means and where it comes from that I've read. The sense of time and place is unerringly evoked, the characters are simultaneously archetypal and idiosynchratic, and the overlap of both generations and musical styles makes a rich, rewarding experience. Really, really top-notch stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Good Listen
Review: This is another of Lee Smith's novels that progresses chronologically through generations, each successive generation represented through a group of narrators (like Oral History) and again her ability to delineate character through that character's voice is amazing. I really respect her as a writer and will keep reading her books until I have exhausted their availability. This time there are five generations of the country music industry, going from backwoods denizens of Grassy Creek who are downright suspicious of fiddle music, trusting no music but the "old hard high" hymns and progressing on down past the Grand Ole Opry to today. I have often made fun of the maudlin excesses of Nashville: when my adult son was a toddler, friends, my wife and I used to give the kid quarters to put in the jukebox in the St. Johnsbury diner to play "I'm Hiring a Wino to Decorate Our Home." (Evidently folks from the Academy where one friend worked did not come to the diner, and the regulars there seemed to think it was cute). Anyway, I was surprised by how affecting I found this book to be. Smith finds the real people behind "genuine country," or at least she creates an illusion that she has captured the actual personalities in their reactions to the hard-won petty triumphs and the terrible sudden tragedies and all the rest behind the sappy songs. I liked the book a lot and Smith obviously loved her subject, judging by the pages of acknowledgements at the end and her comments in them.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Book
Review: What a wonderful book. Quite often, a book is real good until the ending, and then I'm let down, But this has a really good ending too. This tale is really excellent: a verbal piece of art. I liked all the lineage and interconnections in this large musical family. I learned what it's like to have mucic within you -- to write as well as perform. I liked the character developments -- no one all good or all bad, but all very interesting. I recommend this book highly. One learns about US history, country music, human nature, and it's entertaining to boot!

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Book
Review: What a wonderful book. Quite often, a book is real good until the ending, and then I'm let down, But this has a really good ending too. This tale is really excellent: a verbal piece of art. I liked all the lineage and interconnections in this large musical family. I learned what it's like to have mucic within you -- to write as well as perform. I liked the character developments -- no one all good or all bad, but all very interesting. I recommend this book highly. One learns about US history, country music, human nature, and it's entertaining to boot!