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The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
John Fox Jr. published this great romantic novel of the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky and Virginia in 1908, and the book quickly became one of America's favorites. It has all the elements of a good romance -- a superior but natural heroine, a hero who is an agent of progress and enlightenment, a group of supposedly benighted mountaineers to be drawn into the flow of mainstream American culture, a generous dose of social and class struggle, and a setting among the misty coves and cliffs of the blue Cumberlands.
Reprinted with a foreword by John Ed Pearce, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine has all the excitement and poignance that caught and held readers' interest when the book first appeared.
Reprinted with a foreword by John Ed Pearce, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine has all the excitement and poignance that caught and held readers' interest when the book first appeared.
440 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1908
About the author
John Fox Jr.
136 books14 followersJohn William Fox was born in the heart of Bluegrass country in Bourbon County, Kentucky. His father, John W. Fox was headmaster of the Stony Point Academy, which John Jr. attended from 1867 to 1875. After attending the Transylvania University for two years, he entered Massachusetts' Harvard university to study English in 1880, graduating cum laude in 1883.
Fox moved to New York City where he worked for a time as a journalist with the New York Sun and then the New York Times. He then moved to Virginia where he joined his half-brother James in the real estate business, and the rest of the Fox family soon settled there too at Big Stone Gap, now an historic National Monument in memory of the Fox family. The new homestead saw a number of illustrious visitors, including future President Theodore Roosevelt, who became a life-long friend of Fox's. It was in Century magazine that his first story "A Mountain Europa" (1892) was published serially, followed by "A Cumberland Vendetta" a year later. The mountaineer-theme would be repeated in future works. Due to his popularity, he launched into the lecture circuit, travelling around Europe and America, including visits to President Roosevelt's White House, singing accompanying mountaineering songs and reading from his own works and others.
A Cumberland Vendetta and Other Stories (1895) was his first published collection of short stories. It was followed by Hell-Fer-Sartain and Other Stories (1897). The Kentuckians (1897) was followed by the novella A Mountain Europa (1899). Harper's Weekly sent Fox to Cuba in 1898 to report on the Spanish-American War. Crittenden (1900), Blue-Grass and Rhododendron (1901), and Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories (1904) followed, before he was off to Japan and Manchuria to cover the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Following the Sun Flag: A Vain Pursuit Through Manchuria (1905) was a result. A Knight of the Cumberland (1906) was followed by his popular romance/coming-of-age story The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908). This and Little Shepherd were adapted for the big screen in several different versions in 1912, 1916, and 1936.
Fox counted among his friends other popular writers such as Richard Harding Davis, Jack London, and Booth Tarkington. He was awarded many honours in his lifetime including election to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1899, a medal for his literary contributions from the Emperor of Japan, and his dedication and lobbying led to the passing of the Federal Copyright Act. John William Fox Jr. died of pneumonia at Big Stone Gap in Virginia and is buried in the Paris Cemetery, Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky.
Fox moved to New York City where he worked for a time as a journalist with the New York Sun and then the New York Times. He then moved to Virginia where he joined his half-brother James in the real estate business, and the rest of the Fox family soon settled there too at Big Stone Gap, now an historic National Monument in memory of the Fox family. The new homestead saw a number of illustrious visitors, including future President Theodore Roosevelt, who became a life-long friend of Fox's. It was in Century magazine that his first story "A Mountain Europa" (1892) was published serially, followed by "A Cumberland Vendetta" a year later. The mountaineer-theme would be repeated in future works. Due to his popularity, he launched into the lecture circuit, travelling around Europe and America, including visits to President Roosevelt's White House, singing accompanying mountaineering songs and reading from his own works and others.
A Cumberland Vendetta and Other Stories (1895) was his first published collection of short stories. It was followed by Hell-Fer-Sartain and Other Stories (1897). The Kentuckians (1897) was followed by the novella A Mountain Europa (1899). Harper's Weekly sent Fox to Cuba in 1898 to report on the Spanish-American War. Crittenden (1900), Blue-Grass and Rhododendron (1901), and Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories (1904) followed, before he was off to Japan and Manchuria to cover the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Following the Sun Flag: A Vain Pursuit Through Manchuria (1905) was a result. A Knight of the Cumberland (1906) was followed by his popular romance/coming-of-age story The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908). This and Little Shepherd were adapted for the big screen in several different versions in 1912, 1916, and 1936.
Fox counted among his friends other popular writers such as Richard Harding Davis, Jack London, and Booth Tarkington. He was awarded many honours in his lifetime including election to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1899, a medal for his literary contributions from the Emperor of Japan, and his dedication and lobbying led to the passing of the Federal Copyright Act. John William Fox Jr. died of pneumonia at Big Stone Gap in Virginia and is buried in the Paris Cemetery, Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
July 28, 2021
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is not a well-known Appalachian tale unless you live in the Cumberland Gap area of Kentucky and Virginia. Wikipedia explains that along with a broadway production, there have been 3 movie adaptations with the 1936 version earning an Academy Award nomination for best song. The story has also been adapted and performed in an outdoor theater in Big Stone Gap, Virginia since 1964 and is supposed to be the longest running outdoor drama in the US. John Fox, Jr. wrote this in 1908 and grew up in Big Stone Gap and based his novel on many actual people and events from that area.
Now, what does this story offer a curious reader? First of all, there is a budding romance between the two main characters. Engineer John Hale is an outsider, a ”furriner”, who comes to the Gap area and sees an opportunity for wealth in the natural resources here, namely coal and iron ore, and envisions a place that he can make a name for himself. He meets a young, beautiful mountain girl named June Tolliver who catches his eye. He seeks to befriend her family and her father, Devil Judd and buy his rich land. In a Pygmalion-style romance, Hale determines to educate and to basically free her from the mountain ways and lifestyle that she’s known her whole life. A mountain story wouldn’t be complete without a couple of proud feuding families. The Tollivers and the Falins have been fighting and feuding for over 30 years. The need to establish authority and law becomes important but unrecognized by the feuding families who don’t take kindly to Hale’s plans to civilize their backward ways. As Hale gets entangled in the politics of the region as well as the feud, industrialization and the railroad threaten to change the way of life of this isolated culture.
Fox’s simple and unsophisticated prose lends itself well to this story, but for me the build up was slow and the last 1/3 of the book packed more of a punch with the feuding. I enjoyed the story and the mountain ways that were explained and shown in the lives of the characters but the romance was thin and stretched out way too long, in my opinion.
Now, what does this story offer a curious reader? First of all, there is a budding romance between the two main characters. Engineer John Hale is an outsider, a ”furriner”, who comes to the Gap area and sees an opportunity for wealth in the natural resources here, namely coal and iron ore, and envisions a place that he can make a name for himself. He meets a young, beautiful mountain girl named June Tolliver who catches his eye. He seeks to befriend her family and her father, Devil Judd and buy his rich land. In a Pygmalion-style romance, Hale determines to educate and to basically free her from the mountain ways and lifestyle that she’s known her whole life. A mountain story wouldn’t be complete without a couple of proud feuding families. The Tollivers and the Falins have been fighting and feuding for over 30 years. The need to establish authority and law becomes important but unrecognized by the feuding families who don’t take kindly to Hale’s plans to civilize their backward ways. As Hale gets entangled in the politics of the region as well as the feud, industrialization and the railroad threaten to change the way of life of this isolated culture.
Fox’s simple and unsophisticated prose lends itself well to this story, but for me the build up was slow and the last 1/3 of the book packed more of a punch with the feuding. I enjoyed the story and the mountain ways that were explained and shown in the lives of the characters but the romance was thin and stretched out way too long, in my opinion.
January 1, 2013
It's interesting how many people use the term "Western" to describe this novel set around the Virginia/Kentucky border at the turn of the 20th century. Maybe it's just that the title sounds like the title of a Western. (And the book does have some plot elements in common with westerns, too; namely, the struggle to impose the rule of law in a lawless, violent place.)
The book interweaves 3 elements:
1) A Pygmalion-style love story. A young engineer, Jack Hale, while scouting the mountains of the Cumberland Plateau, takes an interest in a girl (June Tolliver) from a backwoods mountain family; he gets permission from her father to pay for her education, farther and farther afield, eventually sending her all the way to New York. Along the way the two fall in love.
2) The story of two feuding clans, the Tollivers and Falins. Partly because of his interest in June Tolliver, and partly because of his efforts to bring law and order to the region, Jack Hale gets caught in the middle of the feud, antagonizing both sides.
3) The story of how the coming of the railroads, and the coal and iron industry, brought rapid changes to a region and a culture which had been largely isolated for a century. The author, himself a coal and real estate speculator in the region, knew the details of these changes, and the people of the area, intimately; many of the characters, and the feud in the novel, are likely based on real people he knew.
While the author mixes these 3 elements fairly skillfully, it's really aspect #3- the opportunity of having an inside look at a legendary but vanished hillbilly culture, and a ringside seat for a time of historic change- which provides the primary reason for reading this novel today. The love story really isn't all that interesting; even the author of this edition's foreword (John Ed Pearce) admits that the hero, Hale, is "impossibly brave and pure", and that his love interest "is only slightly more believable". The middle portion of the book, which follows her progression from "barefoot hick" to "cultured society girl" to "barefoot hick who is now too educated to be happy with her family anymore", gets a bit dull. Still, the book deserves its status as a classic of American regionalism. If that's something which interests you, this is definitely worthwhile.
The book interweaves 3 elements:
1) A Pygmalion-style love story. A young engineer, Jack Hale, while scouting the mountains of the Cumberland Plateau, takes an interest in a girl (June Tolliver) from a backwoods mountain family; he gets permission from her father to pay for her education, farther and farther afield, eventually sending her all the way to New York. Along the way the two fall in love.
2) The story of two feuding clans, the Tollivers and Falins. Partly because of his interest in June Tolliver, and partly because of his efforts to bring law and order to the region, Jack Hale gets caught in the middle of the feud, antagonizing both sides.
3) The story of how the coming of the railroads, and the coal and iron industry, brought rapid changes to a region and a culture which had been largely isolated for a century. The author, himself a coal and real estate speculator in the region, knew the details of these changes, and the people of the area, intimately; many of the characters, and the feud in the novel, are likely based on real people he knew.
While the author mixes these 3 elements fairly skillfully, it's really aspect #3- the opportunity of having an inside look at a legendary but vanished hillbilly culture, and a ringside seat for a time of historic change- which provides the primary reason for reading this novel today. The love story really isn't all that interesting; even the author of this edition's foreword (John Ed Pearce) admits that the hero, Hale, is "impossibly brave and pure", and that his love interest "is only slightly more believable". The middle portion of the book, which follows her progression from "barefoot hick" to "cultured society girl" to "barefoot hick who is now too educated to be happy with her family anymore", gets a bit dull. Still, the book deserves its status as a classic of American regionalism. If that's something which interests you, this is definitely worthwhile.
September 11, 2022
This 1908 novel is a semi-enchanting love story which only really rises above the ordinary in its attempt to describe the unique culture of who, for lack of a better term, would be described as the hillbillies of Appalachia. Their peculiar speech (thar = there; hit = it; seed = saw; mebbe = maybe, as well as expressions such as 'Well if that ain't the beatenest!'), their family closeness, their oppressive sexism (women prepare and then serve the men, and only sit down to eat themselves after the men have finished, after which they do all the cleaning up), their casual embrace of violence (weapons are a constant possession) and especially, their family feuds, are all testament to a strange, isolated culture.
Fox, who was himself born in Kentucky, does express an abiding respect for these people, including mountain-bred characters of insightful intelligence and broad understanding, as well as attributing their strangeness purely to their relative isolation, not to any sort of intellectual backwardness. In this sense, his depiction is much closer to that given in the movie Songcatcher than in John Boorman's Deliverance or Al Capp's 'L'il Abner'.
The love affair could be seen as a virtual retelling of Shaw's , except for the fact that the novel actually preceded the first performance of the play by five years. John Hale, an engineer, comes to the mountains and realizes that there are valuable coal deposits which may be exploited. He encounters a young girl, June Tolliver, whose constant questionings betoken an innate intelligence. Hale does his best to foster this young mind, initially with books and then eventually by taking her out of the hills to schools in towns of ever increasing size. Her Eliza Dolittle-path of development eventually leads her to New York, and a sense of social nicety which makes her aghast at her family, on her return, eating with only a knife and their fingers. Indeed , when Hale's fortunes turn downward in a catastrophic way, it appears that he is then too dirty for her!
Their path of true love never does run smooth, with her family's feud with the Falin clan unsettling events, Hale's development of a police force in their neighbouring town giving her conflicting attitudes, as well as the boom and bust nature of the economic development of the region adversely affecting Hale's fortunes.
Indeed, economic changes of late nineteenth and early twentieth century American capitalism is another abiding concern of Fox. The rampant speculation, new construction, land-ownership flipping, get-rich-quick mentalities and the refusal to realize that the imagined bubble of prosperity has burst are all very well described, and truly present one of Fox's perceptive insights in this novel.
Also, there is poignant understanding of the pristine beauty of this geographic region. At the end, when the coal deposits have proved negligible and the miners have all gone, Hale announces that he will take down their shacks and bury every bottle and tin can so as to return the landscape to that which they initially feel in love within and with. Hale truly loves the landscape. For example, 'About him, the beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a little ravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire with the scarlet of maple.'
This novel must have been quite popular in the early part of the last century, as it was filmed at least eight different times, only one of which was done after the advent of sound pictures. I'm now going to watch this movie from 1936, as well as a 'true story of the lonesome pine' documentary, which was produced in 2015. The character of June's father was supposedly based on an actual sheriff of a county in Virginia.
Not bad, but nothing all that special.
Fox, who was himself born in Kentucky, does express an abiding respect for these people, including mountain-bred characters of insightful intelligence and broad understanding, as well as attributing their strangeness purely to their relative isolation, not to any sort of intellectual backwardness. In this sense, his depiction is much closer to that given in the movie Songcatcher than in John Boorman's Deliverance or Al Capp's 'L'il Abner'.
The love affair could be seen as a virtual retelling of Shaw's , except for the fact that the novel actually preceded the first performance of the play by five years. John Hale, an engineer, comes to the mountains and realizes that there are valuable coal deposits which may be exploited. He encounters a young girl, June Tolliver, whose constant questionings betoken an innate intelligence. Hale does his best to foster this young mind, initially with books and then eventually by taking her out of the hills to schools in towns of ever increasing size. Her Eliza Dolittle-path of development eventually leads her to New York, and a sense of social nicety which makes her aghast at her family, on her return, eating with only a knife and their fingers. Indeed , when Hale's fortunes turn downward in a catastrophic way, it appears that he is then too dirty for her!
Their path of true love never does run smooth, with her family's feud with the Falin clan unsettling events, Hale's development of a police force in their neighbouring town giving her conflicting attitudes, as well as the boom and bust nature of the economic development of the region adversely affecting Hale's fortunes.
Indeed, economic changes of late nineteenth and early twentieth century American capitalism is another abiding concern of Fox. The rampant speculation, new construction, land-ownership flipping, get-rich-quick mentalities and the refusal to realize that the imagined bubble of prosperity has burst are all very well described, and truly present one of Fox's perceptive insights in this novel.
Also, there is poignant understanding of the pristine beauty of this geographic region. At the end, when the coal deposits have proved negligible and the miners have all gone, Hale announces that he will take down their shacks and bury every bottle and tin can so as to return the landscape to that which they initially feel in love within and with. Hale truly loves the landscape. For example, 'About him, the beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a little ravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire with the scarlet of maple.'
This novel must have been quite popular in the early part of the last century, as it was filmed at least eight different times, only one of which was done after the advent of sound pictures. I'm now going to watch this movie from 1936, as well as a 'true story of the lonesome pine' documentary, which was produced in 2015. The character of June's father was supposedly based on an actual sheriff of a county in Virginia.
Not bad, but nothing all that special.
January 20, 2008
This was part of my Appalachian Lit class in college. John Fox, Jr, who was business man from Lexington, KY, really did come to the mountains of Southeastern KY and Southwestern, VA in the early days (around 1900?) to help settle the territory. He came seeking to buy coal and timber for cheap from the people who had lived there, largely uneducated and unchanged, since Daniel Boone's days. This guy is supposed to be the enemy. He came to take advantage and force "normal" life on my (and probably your) ancestors. His book is in many ways demeaning to the Appalachian population. So why does it have to be so damn good?
It's a love story, ya'll (or, perhaps, more appropriately, you'ns). He constructs the tale of a man (like himself) who came to buy coal and start the town of Big Stone Gap, VA (which he did). His coal-buying prospects lead him across the Big Black Mountain to Harlan County, KY. (Harlan Co. just happens to be where my husband is from.) There he meets a little girl who is very intelligent despite her lack of formal education. He gets permission from her father to send her to boarding school in Big Stone. From there, her education takes her farther and farther from her home. First to Lexington, then to New York. When she returns home and a proper and accomplished young lady, the main character (based on real-life Fox) falls in love with her. However, they've both changed. Years of living in New York have made her refined; while years of living in "the gap" has made him a rough man.
Worse than that, she's a fish-out-of-water. The little girl, now grown, has to return to backwoods Harlan County after years of living in New York. She doesn't fit in. She doesn't know how to do the work that self-sufficient farm life asks; she doesn't know how to relate to other women from the area.
I think the reason I like this book so much is because, despite the fact that Fox paints the majority of people as backwoods, rednecks who marry their cousins, the story of the girl herself poses the question: What happens to a girl who leaves home? Is there a way back?
It's a love story, ya'll (or, perhaps, more appropriately, you'ns). He constructs the tale of a man (like himself) who came to buy coal and start the town of Big Stone Gap, VA (which he did). His coal-buying prospects lead him across the Big Black Mountain to Harlan County, KY. (Harlan Co. just happens to be where my husband is from.) There he meets a little girl who is very intelligent despite her lack of formal education. He gets permission from her father to send her to boarding school in Big Stone. From there, her education takes her farther and farther from her home. First to Lexington, then to New York. When she returns home and a proper and accomplished young lady, the main character (based on real-life Fox) falls in love with her. However, they've both changed. Years of living in New York have made her refined; while years of living in "the gap" has made him a rough man.
Worse than that, she's a fish-out-of-water. The little girl, now grown, has to return to backwoods Harlan County after years of living in New York. She doesn't fit in. She doesn't know how to do the work that self-sufficient farm life asks; she doesn't know how to relate to other women from the area.
I think the reason I like this book so much is because, despite the fact that Fox paints the majority of people as backwoods, rednecks who marry their cousins, the story of the girl herself poses the question: What happens to a girl who leaves home? Is there a way back?
January 15, 2019
I read a book once in which one character told another that his mother only read one book in her whole life. The other said he did not think he could do that, books being so important to him. The first said he was not clear. His mother only read one book but when she finished it, she loved it so, she started it over again. That book was The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox Jr.. I set my own goal to one day read the book that so enthralled the woman. Written at the turn of the century, 19th to 20th the book is about a civil engineer who pioneers coal mining and iron smelting in the Appalachian country that borders Virginia and Kentucky. He meets and is enchanted by a young mountain girl. Every time I expected the story to take off in one direction, it headed in another. One interesting thing the book touched on, although it seemed oblivious to it, was the devastation coal mining and smelting wreak on an unsullied virgin environment and the impact that has on local lives.
September 2, 2011
I liked this book although some of the passages about coal and iron ore get a bit long (think MOBY-DICK). But the love story is beautiful and the Fox's writing is spot on in his descriptions of the mountains and his dialect writing.
Any fan of Appalachian literature or resident of the Appalachian Mountain area should read this. I hope to see the outdoor drama next summer to refresh my memory of it.
Any fan of Appalachian literature or resident of the Appalachian Mountain area should read this. I hope to see the outdoor drama next summer to refresh my memory of it.
May 27, 2018
This past month, Karen and I made our first visit to the Appalachian Mountain range in the eastern US.
Following my attendance at the Movies & Meaning festival in Asheville, North Carolina, Karen joined me and we enjoyed a week immersing ourselves in the culture and spectacular natural beauty of this area. Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and venturing up and down a few of these mountain trails was a particular highlight for us.
This novel is set at the turn of the 19th century when a geologist arrives with ambitions to bring the “progress” of coal mining to the “Gap” along a section of this mountain range. He fortuitously meets and is smitten by a striking little “hillbilly” girl and determines to educate her and refine her to one day be his bride.
It didn’t take long for me to become suspicious of the intentions of this protagonist seemingly turned opportunist for selfish gain, apparently oblivious to the damage he was about to inflict on the natural beauty of the area with his mining pursuits and the suitability of virtually robbing the cradle for his romantic pursuits. Yet this book was written in 1908 so it seemed important that I suspend my ethnocentric proclivities and give Jack Hale a chance to prove himself worthy in the end.
Suffice it to say that the author proved himself sensitive to the true impact of “progress” on nature and for his keen eye for the virgin natural beauty of this area. And there was significant allowance made for character transformation in both man and girl along with a realistic depiction of how the appeal of progress always has its corresponding shadow.
This novel has received significant notoriety, having been adapted numerous times for both stage and screen. I decided to add the 1936 film adaptation starring Henry Fonda to my movie watch list.
Following my attendance at the Movies & Meaning festival in Asheville, North Carolina, Karen joined me and we enjoyed a week immersing ourselves in the culture and spectacular natural beauty of this area. Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and venturing up and down a few of these mountain trails was a particular highlight for us.
This novel is set at the turn of the 19th century when a geologist arrives with ambitions to bring the “progress” of coal mining to the “Gap” along a section of this mountain range. He fortuitously meets and is smitten by a striking little “hillbilly” girl and determines to educate her and refine her to one day be his bride.
It didn’t take long for me to become suspicious of the intentions of this protagonist seemingly turned opportunist for selfish gain, apparently oblivious to the damage he was about to inflict on the natural beauty of the area with his mining pursuits and the suitability of virtually robbing the cradle for his romantic pursuits. Yet this book was written in 1908 so it seemed important that I suspend my ethnocentric proclivities and give Jack Hale a chance to prove himself worthy in the end.
Suffice it to say that the author proved himself sensitive to the true impact of “progress” on nature and for his keen eye for the virgin natural beauty of this area. And there was significant allowance made for character transformation in both man and girl along with a realistic depiction of how the appeal of progress always has its corresponding shadow.
This novel has received significant notoriety, having been adapted numerous times for both stage and screen. I decided to add the 1936 film adaptation starring Henry Fonda to my movie watch list.
February 3, 2023
Beautiful writing & story - would’ve given it a five except for a few racial slurs that really dampened the power of the book for me as a minority. At the time this book was written I guess that was considered average speak.
September 1, 2015
This Cinderalla / Romeo & Juliet epic, set in Appalachia at the turn of the last century, is more than a winter/summer love story but is a love story of place as well. It is an exploration of human nature, the impact of environment on conduct, the power of education over ignorance, and even the dawn of the 'rule of law'.
I read this edition while summering at my grandfather's place so many years ago that there was really not much else to do than read and this was at hand. As a teenager I could wander about his little two acres which included two orchards, plenty of garden, raspberries, hollyhocks, lots of lawn, a chicken house, a barn, cows, pigs, rabbits in hutches, a clothesline, an outdoor privy, a wood-burning stove for cooking, no running water in the house, a little store within walking distance, trees to climb and hide in, irrigation ditches. It was a simple matter to throw myself into reading in the cool of the house when the fascination of board games with cousins wore off and my only company was younger sisters who held no interest for me. I loved this book.
And now, after all these years I've read it again. I don't love stories now as I did then. But I can appreciate the panoramic proportions more. My own grandmother was 14 years younger than my grandfather and reading this gives me a glimpse of how their romance may have unfolded over the years. Our society has ridden the rail of industrialization (industrial EVERYTHING -- education, medicine, farming, etc) and is hearkening back to the roots of simpler times. Full circle.
I read this edition while summering at my grandfather's place so many years ago that there was really not much else to do than read and this was at hand. As a teenager I could wander about his little two acres which included two orchards, plenty of garden, raspberries, hollyhocks, lots of lawn, a chicken house, a barn, cows, pigs, rabbits in hutches, a clothesline, an outdoor privy, a wood-burning stove for cooking, no running water in the house, a little store within walking distance, trees to climb and hide in, irrigation ditches. It was a simple matter to throw myself into reading in the cool of the house when the fascination of board games with cousins wore off and my only company was younger sisters who held no interest for me. I loved this book.
And now, after all these years I've read it again. I don't love stories now as I did then. But I can appreciate the panoramic proportions more. My own grandmother was 14 years younger than my grandfather and reading this gives me a glimpse of how their romance may have unfolded over the years. Our society has ridden the rail of industrialization (industrial EVERYTHING -- education, medicine, farming, etc) and is hearkening back to the roots of simpler times. Full circle.
December 5, 2018
Jack Hale is a "furriner" come to the Virginia mountains in search of coal who ends up in the middle of a redneck family feud, June Tolliver the young daughter of the head of one clan, Devil Judd Tolliver, who Hale buys land from.
Hale has dreams of bringing prosperity to the region, but this requires order, a crackdown on local moonshiners and a 'war between civilization and a lawlessness that was the result of isolation.' Neither of the rival clans take kindly to his plans to civilise their Appalachian appetites.
This clash between the forces of imported progress and regionalist defiance was much stronger than the romance element of the story, which left me feeling a little twitchy. June's age when Jack first sees her by the Lonesome Pine is never stayed, but he calls her "little girl" and gives her a dolly. He effectively grooms her, a fact not overlooked by her cousin Dave, a rival for her affections.
Should the male lead in a popular 20th century romance be a cradle snatcher? It's a little sobering to think that no-one seemed to have a problem with that in 1908, as a readership large enough to make this a bestseller confirms, as well as inspire a famous song five years later.
I quite liked it myself, despite the dubious Pygmalionesque premise. There was just enough grit to keep the melodrama in check. I haven't seen the movie adaptation from the 1930s but I'm presuming they made June older from the outset.
What could have elevated a worthy enterprise into the realm of timeless Art?
Laurel, Hardy, and a huge rubber mallet.
Hale has dreams of bringing prosperity to the region, but this requires order, a crackdown on local moonshiners and a 'war between civilization and a lawlessness that was the result of isolation.' Neither of the rival clans take kindly to his plans to civilise their Appalachian appetites.
This clash between the forces of imported progress and regionalist defiance was much stronger than the romance element of the story, which left me feeling a little twitchy. June's age when Jack first sees her by the Lonesome Pine is never stayed, but he calls her "little girl" and gives her a dolly. He effectively grooms her, a fact not overlooked by her cousin Dave, a rival for her affections.
Should the male lead in a popular 20th century romance be a cradle snatcher? It's a little sobering to think that no-one seemed to have a problem with that in 1908, as a readership large enough to make this a bestseller confirms, as well as inspire a famous song five years later.
I quite liked it myself, despite the dubious Pygmalionesque premise. There was just enough grit to keep the melodrama in check. I haven't seen the movie adaptation from the 1930s but I'm presuming they made June older from the outset.
What could have elevated a worthy enterprise into the realm of timeless Art?
Laurel, Hardy, and a huge rubber mallet.
April 14, 2015
We’ve all heard about the Hatfields and the McCoys and a similar feud serves as background for this tale set at the turn of the Nineteenth Century. This one supposedly began when one school boy made fun of another’s patched jeans. There really is a place on the Virginia/Kentucky Border called Big Stone Gap--I always thought it was fictitious. More recently neighbouring Harlan County is the setting for the 5-season TV series Justified. For those unfamiliar with Appalachia and whose only contact with hill-billy lifestyle is the more sedate The Waltons the milieu described here is terra incognita. The arcadian setting is dramatically at odds with the blight that coal mining, railroads, and company towns, that is about to descend on these backwoods people, will bring. Another contrast is that between the concept of hospitality and the xenophobia that is so apparent.
Once more we see a girl sent away to town for schooling returning to the hoggish manners of her chauvinist male relatives and finding it off-putting. Progress means finding a once pristine brook polluted with sawdust and coal dust. While away at school the lass did not write home because there was no one at home who could read.
The book is a period piece. At times it makes about as much sense as the blood feuds it describes. The boom and bust that coal mining and iron smelting brought to these hills left scars on the land and on the souls of the people who inhabited it. The story has a Hollywood ending.
Once more we see a girl sent away to town for schooling returning to the hoggish manners of her chauvinist male relatives and finding it off-putting. Progress means finding a once pristine brook polluted with sawdust and coal dust. While away at school the lass did not write home because there was no one at home who could read.
The book is a period piece. At times it makes about as much sense as the blood feuds it describes. The boom and bust that coal mining and iron smelting brought to these hills left scars on the land and on the souls of the people who inhabited it. The story has a Hollywood ending.
July 2, 2013
I love Appalachian fiction. My grandmother recommended this book to me. She read it in grade school and she said it would help me to know what it was like when she was growing up. I loved it. I loved reading about the way of life in the mountains back then. I found it interesting that once June left it changed her and she could never really go back again and be completely happy. A common theme in novels, she was now stuck between worlds. I often think my own grandmother felt this way once she left the mountains for city life.
I appreciate Appalachian fiction like this that shows the beauty and depth of the culture of the region. It's characters also have depth, and we begin to understand why they feud. Fox explains why it is such a part of their way of life instead of depicting the stereotypical Hatfield and McCoy feuding hillbillies. We learn of their traditions, their beliefs, and their family pride.
I loved this book, and maybe it's my connection to the area. The fictional Gap that this took place in is described as very close to where my family comes from, so there was a definite personal cord that this story struck. I recommend it to lovers of Appalachian fiction.
I appreciate Appalachian fiction like this that shows the beauty and depth of the culture of the region. It's characters also have depth, and we begin to understand why they feud. Fox explains why it is such a part of their way of life instead of depicting the stereotypical Hatfield and McCoy feuding hillbillies. We learn of their traditions, their beliefs, and their family pride.
I loved this book, and maybe it's my connection to the area. The fictional Gap that this took place in is described as very close to where my family comes from, so there was a definite personal cord that this story struck. I recommend it to lovers of Appalachian fiction.
March 15, 2012
This is perhaps a product of its time in that the action and the plot begin very unobtrusively. You meet the characters as though glimpsed through the trees of the Appalachian forest. It is hard to believe the isolation of small homesteads or even townships in the mountains. While Einstein was proving the theory of relativity, the Hatfields were killing the McCoys over some slight or imagined slight. The nation makes mistakes and moves on, regions once prosperous die and people move out. Some of them do. A mountain girl child grows up and a young mine engineer grows too old for the young woman he discovered near her cabin but has the decency to let her live the life she chooses from the options he has shown her.
My copy was published in 1908. I've forgotten where I found it but I felt like it was worth reading and I was right.
My copy was published in 1908. I've forgotten where I found it but I felt like it was worth reading and I was right.
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October 29, 2016This is my third John Fox, Jr. book. I like reading these westerns written in the vein of Grey and L’Amour. Fox wrote this in 1909 and my copy has three previous names in it, none of which are dated. This is a story about the Virginia and Kentucky wilderness before “civilization” took over. It is about a generations-long feud between two families, I wonder if it was a take-off on the Hatfield and McCoys. In the end the good guy gets the horse, the house, the land, and the girl. Some things never change.
link: see my web site for more book reviews
link: see my web site for more book reviews
June 28, 2008
My motivation for reading this book comes from my grandfather. He was reading "Lonesome Pine" when my mother was born. He named his daughter after the main character in this book. What an insight into my grandfather!
Intrigue, venture, descriptive, Love, fueding, fighting and fussing, Keeps you "on your seat." Old Kentucky/Virginia towns are dipicted as they were. Boom and Bust. John Hale found, making the world his own and alone was impossible. "It is hard for a hungry man to feed imslef with a fork that has but two tines." This book will afect your life!
Intrigue, venture, descriptive, Love, fueding, fighting and fussing, Keeps you "on your seat." Old Kentucky/Virginia towns are dipicted as they were. Boom and Bust. John Hale found, making the world his own and alone was impossible. "It is hard for a hungry man to feed imslef with a fork that has but two tines." This book will afect your life!
May 14, 2018
There isn't a character in this book that I like, and it's a love story - 2 strikes. However, the setting and cultural details make it a good read. They're mostly, however, exactly what you'd expect, and teh characters are mostly cliches. There are long sections of introspection that could be removed, and I hate how he calls her "little girl," highlighting the fact that he was staking out a child for a bride. I liked the descriptions of the cove and their way of life.
December 12, 2017
As I read, I kept wondering if I'd read this book before. So much of it was familiar and predictable. Then it dawned on me that the story was very similar to Kady by Patience Stapleton. Kady was published in 1888, 20 years before this book.
April 28, 2016
I got this years ago and read it within a month of buying it. I especially loved the scenery depicted, as well as feeling the edge-of-my-seat suspense over the next actions of the feuding neighbors. The romance is sweet and subtle until the very end.
May 3, 2009
This book and his "Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come" are two of my all-time favorite stories. Fox is buried in the same Paris, KY cemetery where my brother-in-law, Al Proctor is buried.
April 15, 2021
This is a story about development and devolution both, set in Appalachia about 1900.
The plot entwines three main themes: (1) a Pygmalion story that predates George Bernard Shaw's play but features a young man who educates a young girl and falls in love with her; (2) the economic gains and losses involved in developing coal and iron deposits in Appalachia; (3) the social gains and losses involved in modernizing the backwoods region where a decades-old family feud has been going on.
The young man, John Hale, a mining engineer, comes into the Cumberland Gap region looking for coal deposits to exploit. He finds a promising seam, buys land to begin building a town, and meets the young teen or pre-teen (we aren't told exactly) daughter of the man whose land has the coal, and Hale wants to educate this very intelligent girl, June Tolliver. Her father agrees for her to go to boarding school in the town Hale has started. Hale and old "Devil" Judd Tolliver negotiate the sale of Tolliver's land so that it contains a benefit for June's education.
Tolliver and his entire clan are involved in a long-running feud with the Falin clan, and Hale's attempts to bring "law and order" to the region without having to take sides are thwarted as his actions bring him the enmity of one side and then the other and then back again. Instead of establishing peace in the community, Hale inadvertently sets off a chain of violence that he has to try to solve.
The economic gains of mining, with the poor rural families suddenly getting rich, are set against the environmental losses as the once-sparkling creek turns black with soot; the trees "scream" as they are cut down; and the entire area begins to look spoiled. More families move away as they find they cannot establish new homes.
As June Tolliver gains higher education, ending up in a music college in New York City, she acquires the polish and preferences for higher society that almost spoil her love for her family and home. But she manages to maintain a realistic view of what she goes back to on her visits there, and she does not, as some reviewers say, turn up her nose at her family's situation. When she goes back, she goes back to work, despite her out-of-condition muscles. What she turns up her nose at is John Hale, who, as a matter of pragmatism when faced with looming economic ruin, discards the habits of dress and appearance that he actually can no longer afford when he has to stay in the backwoods for months on end. And actually June doesn't so much reject him as she expresses involuntary surprise--after all, he never appeared so uncouth in her experience with him before. He interprets it as rejection, and that's a different thing.
I liked it that at the end the book didn't offer a full solution to all of the problems. But I did like that John Hale decides after the coal seam turns into worthless flint and the mining is stopped, that he will repair the environmental damage and restore everything to the way it was as much as possible. He has a real appreciation for the beauty of the area, and he can balance that with his pragmatic view of the need for coal mines somewhere else.
One of the interesting things about this book was that the character of John Hale is very much in the style of the Nietzchean Superman that was very popular back in those days among literary figures. GB Shaw had his "Man and Superman"; Henry James had his novel "The American"; here you have all the possible virtues embodied in John Hale, although unlike those more literary works, this novel has little pretension to greatness.
It's a good story of the then-current American values set against an older American culture, and it allows each culture its enduring value, which is what makes this story a cut above the pulp novels of its day.
***Note: I read this because of the inscription in the first-edition copy I found in the family things. It was signed by my husband's great-grandmother, who as an English child was sent to work by age 8 and nearly starved to death by one employer before her stepmother found out and brought her home to nurse her back to health. She was taught to read & write, and when she was nearly grown up, her father and brother took her with them to America. She met & married a wagon-driver and raised 17 children (!), one of whom gave her this book for Christmas 1914, when she was 67 years old. I wanted to know what kind of book she saved, out of all that she had read by then.
The plot entwines three main themes: (1) a Pygmalion story that predates George Bernard Shaw's play but features a young man who educates a young girl and falls in love with her; (2) the economic gains and losses involved in developing coal and iron deposits in Appalachia; (3) the social gains and losses involved in modernizing the backwoods region where a decades-old family feud has been going on.
The young man, John Hale, a mining engineer, comes into the Cumberland Gap region looking for coal deposits to exploit. He finds a promising seam, buys land to begin building a town, and meets the young teen or pre-teen (we aren't told exactly) daughter of the man whose land has the coal, and Hale wants to educate this very intelligent girl, June Tolliver. Her father agrees for her to go to boarding school in the town Hale has started. Hale and old "Devil" Judd Tolliver negotiate the sale of Tolliver's land so that it contains a benefit for June's education.
Tolliver and his entire clan are involved in a long-running feud with the Falin clan, and Hale's attempts to bring "law and order" to the region without having to take sides are thwarted as his actions bring him the enmity of one side and then the other and then back again. Instead of establishing peace in the community, Hale inadvertently sets off a chain of violence that he has to try to solve.
The economic gains of mining, with the poor rural families suddenly getting rich, are set against the environmental losses as the once-sparkling creek turns black with soot; the trees "scream" as they are cut down; and the entire area begins to look spoiled. More families move away as they find they cannot establish new homes.
As June Tolliver gains higher education, ending up in a music college in New York City, she acquires the polish and preferences for higher society that almost spoil her love for her family and home. But she manages to maintain a realistic view of what she goes back to on her visits there, and she does not, as some reviewers say, turn up her nose at her family's situation. When she goes back, she goes back to work, despite her out-of-condition muscles. What she turns up her nose at is John Hale, who, as a matter of pragmatism when faced with looming economic ruin, discards the habits of dress and appearance that he actually can no longer afford when he has to stay in the backwoods for months on end. And actually June doesn't so much reject him as she expresses involuntary surprise--after all, he never appeared so uncouth in her experience with him before. He interprets it as rejection, and that's a different thing.
I liked it that at the end the book didn't offer a full solution to all of the problems. But I did like that John Hale decides after the coal seam turns into worthless flint and the mining is stopped, that he will repair the environmental damage and restore everything to the way it was as much as possible. He has a real appreciation for the beauty of the area, and he can balance that with his pragmatic view of the need for coal mines somewhere else.
One of the interesting things about this book was that the character of John Hale is very much in the style of the Nietzchean Superman that was very popular back in those days among literary figures. GB Shaw had his "Man and Superman"; Henry James had his novel "The American"; here you have all the possible virtues embodied in John Hale, although unlike those more literary works, this novel has little pretension to greatness.
It's a good story of the then-current American values set against an older American culture, and it allows each culture its enduring value, which is what makes this story a cut above the pulp novels of its day.
***Note: I read this because of the inscription in the first-edition copy I found in the family things. It was signed by my husband's great-grandmother, who as an English child was sent to work by age 8 and nearly starved to death by one employer before her stepmother found out and brought her home to nurse her back to health. She was taught to read & write, and when she was nearly grown up, her father and brother took her with them to America. She met & married a wagon-driver and raised 17 children (!), one of whom gave her this book for Christmas 1914, when she was 67 years old. I wanted to know what kind of book she saved, out of all that she had read by then.
September 5, 2020
John Fox was a native of my home state of Kentucky. When I looked up his birthplace, I was surprised to find that it is only a few miles from my family's farm, so I have probably driven past it hundreds of times. I also discovered that he went to my college and that during most of his time as a writer, he lived in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, the home town of my friend and client, Adriana Trigiani, who has written her own wonderful novels that are set in this small mountain town. So I was favorably disposed to Mr. Fox from page one, and he did not disappoint.
Sometimes the writing is a bit cliched, but on the whole it is quite good. It gets a little entangled in the combination of June's Pygmalion story with the story of the Tolliver/Falin feud and the story of the coming of mining and railroads to the mountains, but the stories fit together well enough. The greatest strength of the book is its characters. June is enchanting. I could feel why Jack and others could not help being drawn to her, even though she could barely be considered a diamond in the rough at the beginning of the story when she first captures Jack's heart. And the mountaineers are great characters too -- Devil Judd, Bad Rufe, the enigmatic Red Fox, the lovable Uncle Billy and Old Hon. Judd in particular is unforgettable, combining great physical strength with a native wisdom that makes him a fine father to June, able to see the inevitable approach of modernity, but with a foot firmly planted in the traditional culture of the region, which creates a contradiction that is his tragic flaw. I also enjoyed the portrayal of mountain culture. The people have a clannish closeness, but are barely able to show one another physical affection. Their sense of honor dominates their personalities and relations with one another, and they can take easy offense at well intended words and deeds of outsiders who do not understand their culture. But Jack Hale has a deep affection for them that we can feel and share, even as he tries to drag them into modernity in a way that will ultimately destroy their world. This is Jack's tragic flaw, which is the mirror image of Judd's. The other strong pillar on which this book rests is the beautiful natural setting of the mountains, with the trees, streams, hills, the eponymous lonesome pine and the endless references to rhododendron and mountain laurel. Fox's love for this beautiful place is as palpable as Steinbeck's love for the Salinas Valley.
An important part of what really happened at this time and place is seriously underplayed -- the tragic legacy of coal mining and its attendant exploitation. Fox gives us some hints of this. There are a few references to polluted streams, dead fish, the influx of people and noise, boom and bust cycles and the end of the traditional way of life, but a lot of it comes off in the book as being positive, though it is true that at the end of the book Jack and June swear to clean up the remains of the mining operation and restore the natural beauty of Lonesome Cove. The unfortunate reality is that most of what really happened was negative. The natural wealth of the region was pillaged, and while coal mining offered high paying employment, it also brought back-breaking dangerous work, black lung and early graves for thousands. The people were left in poverty, with a terrible educational system, political corruption and in recent decades a horrible drug abuse problem. The wealth all flowed downhill to Lexington and Louisville. Almost none of the coal barons became local people like Jack Hale. Almost none of them had Jack Hale's sense of fair play. To understand this part of the region's history, you have to read Night Comes to the Cumberlands.
Sometimes the writing is a bit cliched, but on the whole it is quite good. It gets a little entangled in the combination of June's Pygmalion story with the story of the Tolliver/Falin feud and the story of the coming of mining and railroads to the mountains, but the stories fit together well enough. The greatest strength of the book is its characters. June is enchanting. I could feel why Jack and others could not help being drawn to her, even though she could barely be considered a diamond in the rough at the beginning of the story when she first captures Jack's heart. And the mountaineers are great characters too -- Devil Judd, Bad Rufe, the enigmatic Red Fox, the lovable Uncle Billy and Old Hon. Judd in particular is unforgettable, combining great physical strength with a native wisdom that makes him a fine father to June, able to see the inevitable approach of modernity, but with a foot firmly planted in the traditional culture of the region, which creates a contradiction that is his tragic flaw. I also enjoyed the portrayal of mountain culture. The people have a clannish closeness, but are barely able to show one another physical affection. Their sense of honor dominates their personalities and relations with one another, and they can take easy offense at well intended words and deeds of outsiders who do not understand their culture. But Jack Hale has a deep affection for them that we can feel and share, even as he tries to drag them into modernity in a way that will ultimately destroy their world. This is Jack's tragic flaw, which is the mirror image of Judd's. The other strong pillar on which this book rests is the beautiful natural setting of the mountains, with the trees, streams, hills, the eponymous lonesome pine and the endless references to rhododendron and mountain laurel. Fox's love for this beautiful place is as palpable as Steinbeck's love for the Salinas Valley.
An important part of what really happened at this time and place is seriously underplayed -- the tragic legacy of coal mining and its attendant exploitation. Fox gives us some hints of this. There are a few references to polluted streams, dead fish, the influx of people and noise, boom and bust cycles and the end of the traditional way of life, but a lot of it comes off in the book as being positive, though it is true that at the end of the book Jack and June swear to clean up the remains of the mining operation and restore the natural beauty of Lonesome Cove. The unfortunate reality is that most of what really happened was negative. The natural wealth of the region was pillaged, and while coal mining offered high paying employment, it also brought back-breaking dangerous work, black lung and early graves for thousands. The people were left in poverty, with a terrible educational system, political corruption and in recent decades a horrible drug abuse problem. The wealth all flowed downhill to Lexington and Louisville. Almost none of the coal barons became local people like Jack Hale. Almost none of them had Jack Hale's sense of fair play. To understand this part of the region's history, you have to read Night Comes to the Cumberlands.
January 27, 2020
I searched this out after catching the last half hour of the 1936 movie version starring Henry Fonda. And I'm so glad I did - it's an amazing romantic adventure story.
John Hale, an engineer, stumbles onto what he believes to be a promising coal vein at the same time he encounters a beautiful young girl - both untouched - in the Appalachians, in the heart of feuding country. As he develops the opportunity, Hale is determined to keep the mountains wild, but bring civilization to the area, in the form of law and order to the town built on the scent of coal, and education to the young girl.
John Fox Jr. ably writes about irrational resistance to change, impact of speculation on small markets, childish versus mature love, and long-term resentment and family loyalty culminating in violence. If he occasionally falls prey to the concept that the educated man is superior to the uneducated, it's not surprising, given the book was published in 1908. Overlooking that flaw, you get a beautifully written story of love, family feuds, ambition, and honor. And, like most real love stories, not everything is resolved, other than hearts, at the end.
This story follows the Tug River Valley story of the discovery of coal by Frederick J. Kimball, the subsequent influx of speculation over mineral rights, the coming of the railroad and, in the background, the Hatfield - McCoy feud. Those who know that (often sensationalized) story will see the similarities and parallels as they follow Fox's story. It's a romantic story, but behind it is the impact of civilization at its worst upon the mountains.
It's not surprising this was a bestseller when it came out; it was adapted into a play in 1912, and into movies in 1914, 1916 (C. B. deMille), 1923 (now lost) and 1936 - with each of those taking various liberties with the story - and has been running since 1964 as a play in Fox's home town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Worth the read, and a fun literary analysis for English/History Majors.
John Hale, an engineer, stumbles onto what he believes to be a promising coal vein at the same time he encounters a beautiful young girl - both untouched - in the Appalachians, in the heart of feuding country. As he develops the opportunity, Hale is determined to keep the mountains wild, but bring civilization to the area, in the form of law and order to the town built on the scent of coal, and education to the young girl.
John Fox Jr. ably writes about irrational resistance to change, impact of speculation on small markets, childish versus mature love, and long-term resentment and family loyalty culminating in violence. If he occasionally falls prey to the concept that the educated man is superior to the uneducated, it's not surprising, given the book was published in 1908. Overlooking that flaw, you get a beautifully written story of love, family feuds, ambition, and honor. And, like most real love stories, not everything is resolved, other than hearts, at the end.
This story follows the Tug River Valley story of the discovery of coal by Frederick J. Kimball, the subsequent influx of speculation over mineral rights, the coming of the railroad and, in the background, the Hatfield - McCoy feud. Those who know that (often sensationalized) story will see the similarities and parallels as they follow Fox's story. It's a romantic story, but behind it is the impact of civilization at its worst upon the mountains.
It's not surprising this was a bestseller when it came out; it was adapted into a play in 1912, and into movies in 1914, 1916 (C. B. deMille), 1923 (now lost) and 1936 - with each of those taking various liberties with the story - and has been running since 1964 as a play in Fox's home town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Worth the read, and a fun literary analysis for English/History Majors.
August 8, 2020
I loved the story and can’t wait to go to the outdoor drama in Big Stone Gap when things settle down from the Covid -19 pandemic. I have also read several articles about how JOhn Fox Jr. portrayed the mountain folk, of which i am one. I was not offended but i do realize how we need to be sensitive to that. I have known very many intelligent people who never had a high school or college education. I have also known people who were very educated but “didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain”. John Fox Jr.’s story is interesting also. Glad I ran into this book and Kentucky writer through the books by Adriqnq Trigiani beginning with Big Stone Gap and ending with Home to Big Stone Gap. I was at a sale at the library of used books and came across a copy of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine that was copywrite 1908 for $3 so i grabbed it up. I’m so glad I did.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2023
I found an original 1908 copy at a flea market and was eager to read this, and all in all I am glad I did because it’s such a classic!
It’s an Appalachian Romeo and Juliet. I was a bit uncomfortable that his methods we’d now call “grooming” because he fell in love with her when she was a child and doted on her with the hopes she’d marry him. However, I do understand times were very different then and rural America has always had a different approach on marriage and appropriate age for match making than what us modern women of 2023 believe so I just kept an open mind.
I thought the writing style and setting was beautiful!
It’s an Appalachian Romeo and Juliet. I was a bit uncomfortable that his methods we’d now call “grooming” because he fell in love with her when she was a child and doted on her with the hopes she’d marry him. However, I do understand times were very different then and rural America has always had a different approach on marriage and appropriate age for match making than what us modern women of 2023 believe so I just kept an open mind.
I thought the writing style and setting was beautiful!
November 4, 2023
An American literary classic written in 1908 about the isolated life in the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky/ Virginia border and the bringing of “progress” and the resulting internal and external conflicts. This is historical fiction and a romance all in one.
The reviews mentioned it being slow moving. That didn’t bother me at all. I enjoyed the description of the surroundings, mountain people and customs, etc. For me, this book was well worth the read, and the last half picks up the pace for a sweet ending.
Appropriate for my teen? Absolutely!
The reviews mentioned it being slow moving. That didn’t bother me at all. I enjoyed the description of the surroundings, mountain people and customs, etc. For me, this book was well worth the read, and the last half picks up the pace for a sweet ending.
Appropriate for my teen? Absolutely!
May 23, 2017
Loved this book. Probably the best of Fox's novels. Am kind of biased since I am up in the area the story is set in a lot and have connections through family of the real-life inspirations of a few of the characters. The Red Fox was in the same Civil War unit as my great-great-great-grandfather and (true story) my mother went to school and worked with Devil John's (Devil Judd in the book) grandson.
Also like the outdoor production held in Big Stone Gap each season.
Also like the outdoor production held in Big Stone Gap each season.
August 19, 2017
My dearest friend gave me this book around Easter. I don't recall exactly where she found it, maybe an estate sale. It was written by John Fox, Jr, published in 1908. A beautiful, tumultuous love story in the coal mines and mountains of Stone Gap. It was slow to start but soon it pulled me in and I looked forward to my half hour of reading it at the end of the day.
And this story is referenced in play form in Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap.
And this story is referenced in play form in Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap.
March 11, 2020
While well-written and fascinating, I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second. It has a homey feel to someone who has grown up in the Appalachian mountains and been to Big Stone Gap, where Mr. Fox was from. I just read The Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright and it was interesting to see how similar the early 1900's Ozarks and Appalachians were, though hundreds of miles apart. This book is a great way to learn about the "backwoods" people and their way of life.
July 6, 2021
The lovely, tender, poignant love story between John Hale, an entrepreneur who comes to an isolated rural community in Appalachia in the early 20th century, and June Tolliver, a diamond in the rough who longs for a world larger than the insular culture she was born and raised in, is the heart of this sensitive, sentimental novel. There is much more to it than just the romance, but that is what drives the action of the book. It's utterly charming, and hard to put down.
August 26, 2019
Mostly liked the book, but annoyed at the portrayal of the coal mines as saviors of the mountains that they mostly destroyed. John Hale is no protagonist, even if he is written to be a sympathetic character.
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