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.
Rating:
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: McCrumb at her best
Review: I have enjoyed all of Sharyn McCrumb's novels set in Appalachia, the area she knows so well and depicts so vividly. "The Songcatcher" displays her storytelling gifts at their best, as she weaves centuries-old Scots-Irish songs into her story. (If the movie of the same name is based upon Mc Crumb's book, it is so VERY loosely based as to be unrecognizable.)
The old songs, many of which are sung in medieval, hauntingly lovely Dorian modes, are unfamiliar to the modern ear since the chord structures and intervals are different from those used today. They tell of love and longing, fate and struggle, heartbreak and fulfillment. (Perhaps in a future edition of the book, cds can be included so the reader can hear the songs McCrumb carefully describes?)
In "The Songcatcher," McCrumb is able to subtly invoke the spirit of Celtic mysticism which enlivens all her novels. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Glad to see some characters from the past!
Review: I have read 90% of Sharyn McCrumb's books. I started with Frankie Silver in a book club and was hooked. I especially like the "Appalachian Series" and the characters that appear from book to book. That is one reason I liked The Songcatacher. It ebbed and flowed similarly to the "Appalachian Series" and also had return characters. If you enjoyed this book I highly recommend all in the "Appalachian Series". I can't remember the correct order they come in but research it and read them in order if possible. It is not completely necessary, however. She Walks These Hills and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter were probably my favorites. I liked them more than The Rosewood Casket and especially more than If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy-O.
Rating:
Summary: Easy reading
Review: I read this in one sitting, and found the genealogy thread as fascinating as the song thread. Sharyn McCrumb knows her people, and has a tremendous respect for them. She has become a one-woman army against all the outlanders who stereotype mountain people as ignorant rednecks. The only criticism I have is a lack of closure on the people. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Not her best...
Review: I've read all of Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian novels and eagerly looked forward to reading this one. I did finish it, but it seemed far more chore than pleasure. We spent so much time bouncing around between characters in different times and places that I never really developed much interest in any of them. I hoped I would become hooked right until the last page and was almost relieved when I finally finished. If you've never read Sharon McCrumb, try her earlier novels, particularly "She Walks These Hills," and "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter."
Rating:
Summary: A tremendously rich epic
Review: In 1751 Islay, off the Scottish coast, Malcolm McCourry is abducted and turned into a slave on board a ship heading to the New World. On the trek, he hears and learns a haunting ballad. In America, Malcolm makes the most of his fate and soon becomes a lawyer and starts a family. He hands down the ballad to his sons. Over a couple of centuries later, country singer Lark McCourry flies from her California home to see her ailing father. When her plane crashes in the Carolina Mountains, she calls police dispatcher Ben Hawkins. However, she wastes her cell phone battery by asking for his help in finding the family song she vaguely remembers from her youth rather than for her rescue. He turns to Nora, who can help with the song, but not with finding Lark. THE SONGCATCHER is a tremendously rich epic that sweeps across two and a half centuries. The story line is loaded with depth as readers get a deep glimpse into strong characters that cross the American generational spectrum since the birth of the nation in a combined historical and contemporary plot. Sharyn McCrumb's latest novel turns into a delightful gourmet meal for anyone who wants a deep ballad filled with humor and poignancy as reading material. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: THE SONGCATCHER is a wonderful book.
Review: In the "old" days, people in the United States actually spent part of their leisure time "spinning yarns," telling stories true and exaggerated or fake and farfetched. It is hard to imagine, in this day of the computer, people passing anything down to each other without putting it on a hard drive first. However, in Sharyn McCrumb's wonderfully intricate THE SONGCATCHER, a young woman searches out her family legacy in a song that has been passed through the generations, which tells her more about where she came from than any legal document ever could. This is a yarn if there ever was one.
Lark McCourry is a contemporary girl with one foot firmly in the past. As a folksinger, she finds all music fascinating, but the song passed throughout her family ties is special. Brought to existence by one Malcolm McQuarry, an ancestor who moved to the States from Scotland in 1759, it was learned aboard an English ship and traveled with Malcolm all his life, from Morristown, New Jersey to Western North Carolina. The song gained new strength and purpose as the McCourry family suffered through the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the other great upheavals that shaped a nation...and a family history as well. Lark must turn to Nora Bonesteel, a friend of her father's, for information --- Nora has the ability to talk to both the dead and the living, and Lark needs to explore both realms in order to discover the real meaning of the song.
McCrumb is a writer compelled by an inner truth to look at life from all sides. Her characters are deep and enriched with truly human attributes (Lark's father will start to feel like a member of the family halfway into the story), and the whole thing reads like her own family history. You get the sense that the author has been here before, in this territory, living among these people, listening, watching. I felt like some secret had been spilled bravely by her, a tale of a family that had been rightly protected until her eager writer-self convinced them to let her tell their adventures to everyone. THE SONGCATCHER has that spectral quality.
THE SONGCATCHER is a wonderful book (and, by the way, was recently made into a wonderful film by Maggie Greenlaw and is available on video). Once you get the story of this song inside your own head, you will hear its music in your heart as well.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
Rating:
Summary: The Songcatcher
Review: In1751, ten-year-old Malcolm McCourry was kidnapped from his Scottish island to work on a sailing ship. Years later when he homesteated in the mountains of North Carolina he left his family two legacies; a folk song he learned on the ship and the family's Highland curse that no McCourry will ever love his first born best. The novel follows Malcolm's song and the curse from 1751 to the present and we watch the song, the family, and America itself change with the passing years. This novel is itself a ballad to all those who left one country and settled another, carrying their heritage in their hearts.
Rating:
Summary: The Songcatcher
Review: In1751, ten-year-old Malcolm McCourry was kidnapped from his Scottish island to work on a sailing ship. Years later when he homesteated in the mountains of North Carolina he left his family two legacies; a folk song he learned on the ship and the family's Highland curse that no McCourry will ever love his first born best. The novel follows Malcolm's song and the curse from 1751 to the present and we watch the song, the family, and America itself change with the passing years. This novel is itself a ballad to all those who left one country and settled another, carrying their heritage in their hearts.
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