A Depression-era Appalachian farm wife is branded as a witch by her fundamentalist husband when she bonds with a USDA agent who has traveled to the North Carolina mountains to instruct regional families on how to modernize their homes and farms.
This is extraordinary. My favorite Appalachian book of the year. My favorite book set in North Carolina; my favorite book for the way it handles the region and its religion. “A spellbinding story of witchcraft and disobedience,” indeed. The way Julia Franks writes the two sides of the story and makes them both not just plausible but sympathetic is, well, extraordinary. The dialogue sounds like home. Will be re-reading this one and praising it far and wide.
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8 November, 2017:
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