The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek…About the Book: Show The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything—everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome’s got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy’s not only a book woman, however, she’s also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy’s family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she’s going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachia and suspicion as deep as the holler. Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, and one woman’s belief that books can carry us anywhere — even back home. My Thoughts:The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek merges two uniquely fascinating histories plucked right out of the wild Kentucky mountains. Before I go any further, I’ll draw your attention to this extract from the author’s notes:
Both of these incredible histories are merged within The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, set during the Great Depression of the 1930s, deep in the Kentucky mountains. This is hardscrabble life like you wouldn’t believe. The only source of income is from coal mining, but the companies are only after one thing, as much black gold as they can get, with the minimum wage and the minimum standards of employment with no regard for safety. People aren’t even paid with money, but with a credit system that allows them to only shop at the company store. The corruption is entrenched and those seeking to unionise more often than not ‘disappear’.
Violence is rife, mistrust runs deep and inbreeding is par for the course. Law enforcement is loose, dependent upon access, which is not widespread given the way people live dotted all through the mountains. I studied some units of geography at university, one of them on the social geography of North America. I remember this area, the Appalachian mountains, and this was where I first came across my knowledge of the blue mountain people. I’ve never read a novel that has taken the reader so deeply into a hidden history before, and done it with such a depth of understanding for the area being written about.
Against this backdrop, Cussy Mary – or Bluet as she is more commonly, yet less preferably, called – traverses the mountains delivering and collecting library books to those who wouldn’t otherwise see a book ever, much less learn to read one. She reads to people, teaches others to read, spends time with the lonely, delivers books to a remote school and a community of mountain folk that never leave their holler. This novel is a testament about the importance of reading in changing lives, the joy and connection that can stem from books, and the way ignorance can be pierced through education.
Cussy Mary is blue. Genuinely blue. She’s about the loneliest person I’ve ever read about. People fear her more than any other type of person. Going to town is arduous and incredibly painful. Her job is her life, and out on the mountains, delivering books, her colour matters less, but it takes a long time, and many awful things to happen, before she can accept herself just the way she was born. Her pain brought me to tears over and over, not just because of the prejudice she was subjected to, but also because of the lack of self-worth she was filled with on account of being blue. She had so much to offer, yet most people just wanted to keep their distance and ridicule her. I spent a good portion of this novel filled with fear for her. There was this feeling that pervaded where you had a sense that to many, she was less than human. It was so wrong, just so, so wrong.
The poverty depicted within this novel is startlingly disturbing. People literally starving to death. Whole families becoming extinct, pride preventing them from accessing welfare, prejudice preventing them from seeking help. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is unlike any other novel I’ve ever read. Starkly beautiful in its prose, confronting and desperately painful to comprehend. That it’s so deeply grounded in truth just made it all the more profound. Cussy’s story made my heart hurt, yet despite the grim reality punctuating every single scene throughout the novel, hope sparked in the most unlikely of places. It’s an incredible novel. One of the best I’ve read.
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek will take you to a place you’ve probably heard little of during a time when life was perhaps at its most lacking and desperate. I cannot recommend this novel highly enough, which is why I’ve included so many quotes. It really does speak for itself. 🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵 Thanks is extended to Sourcebooks Landmark via NetGalley for providing me with a copy of The Book Woman Of Troublesome Creek for review. About the Author:Kim Michele Richardson lives in Kentucky and resides part-time in western North Carolina. She is an advocate for the prevention of child abuse and domestic violence and has partnered with the U.S. Navy globally to bring awareness and education to the prevention of domestic violence. She is the author of the bestselling memoir The Unbreakable Child and is the founder of the tiny home Shy Rabbit, a writers/ artists scholarship residency . Her novels include Liar’s Bench, GodPretty in the Tobacco Field, and The Sisters of Glass Ferry. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek What is the controversy about The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek?The controversy revolves around possible plagiarism on Jojo Moyes part, asserting that parts of The Giver of Stars are too similar to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek to be a coincidence.
Is the book The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek a true story?The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a 2019 novel by Kim Michele Richardson. The story is a fictionalized account of real subjects in the history of eastern Kentucky.
Who are the main characters in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek?In the 1930s, nineteen-year-old Cussy Carter and her father live in the isolated woods of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. They are the last of the “blue people” of Kentucky and endure racism and prejudice because of the blue hue of their skin.
Where is The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek set?The historical fiction novel by Kim Michele Richardson is set during the Great Depression in rural Kentucky, when packhorse librarians traveled long distances on mules to carry books to Appalachian families. In Troublesome Creek, that traveling librarian is Cussy May Carter, who was born with blue skin.
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