This is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time. And I read a lot of novels. I’d hesitated about it, because I’d read Jojo Moyes’ Giver of Stars, which is about the same time and place and situation–the WPA program in Kentucky for bringing books to isolated rural families.
I had read Moyes’ book first and liked it. Her writing is smooth and her stories engaging. Then I read about the controversy around Giver of Stars and Book Woman. Richardson thought Moyes had lifted some of her plot and ideas, which Moyes denied. But I think Richardson is right. There are too many similarities, and specific ones, to think Moyes hadn’t got some ideas from Richardson–the socially outcast heroine, the stalker on the trail killed by a mule, the handsome love interest who defies the town’s scorn and picks the outcast, the wise black librarian, the 3-month old baby at their wedding, and so on.
If you pick one of these books, read this one! The language and dialect alone, carried along in a musical rhythm, are worth it. Richardson’s descriptions and dialogue are rich with symbols, metaphors, and vocabulary that is unique to the Appalachian hill country and pure poetry. I highlighted so many sentences and phrases that I began to worry I’d underline the whole book. The story is engaging and page-turning, and there is lots of interesting history, not least about the packhorse librarians and the blue-skinned people of Kentucky.