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Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea
"Jim Gulledge is a talented and lyrical storyteller, and he has crafted a ripping good story." -Robert Inman, Author of Home Fires Burning and The Governor's Lady
"These pages are graced with fortunes won and lost, revenge taken, love gained, and even buried treasure. If this book doesn't stir your love of the Tar Heel state, nothing will." -Culley Holderfield, Author of Hemlock Hollow
"Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea does more than describe the geographical settings of his linked stories; the title draws the reader through a sometimes magical journey."-Carter Taylor Seaton. Author of The Other Morgans
In Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea, amid the rugged terrain of North Carolina, a small pocket watch bears witness to the loves and losses of three families-the Kellers, Elliotts, and McClures. As the heirloom passes down over a hundred years, questions arise. Can strength and goodness be gifted to one's heirs? What about corruption and evil? Do the lives of ancestors have any bearing on those who come after them?
From Reconstruction to the modern age, this sweeping family saga speaks to what binds families together and tears them apart. Powers of darkness and light fight for the minds and hearts of every individual. In a land of beauty populated by Scots Irish pioneers, cotton farmers, Native Americans, fishermen, and pirates, Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea is a chronicle of human failings and the power of redemption-and a probing narrative of which is the stronger force.
"These pages are graced with fortunes won and lost, revenge taken, love gained, and even buried treasure. If this book doesn't stir your love of the Tar Heel state, nothing will." -Culley Holderfield, Author of Hemlock Hollow
"Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea does more than describe the geographical settings of his linked stories; the title draws the reader through a sometimes magical journey."-Carter Taylor Seaton. Author of The Other Morgans
In Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea, amid the rugged terrain of North Carolina, a small pocket watch bears witness to the loves and losses of three families-the Kellers, Elliotts, and McClures. As the heirloom passes down over a hundred years, questions arise. Can strength and goodness be gifted to one's heirs? What about corruption and evil? Do the lives of ancestors have any bearing on those who come after them?
From Reconstruction to the modern age, this sweeping family saga speaks to what binds families together and tears them apart. Powers of darkness and light fight for the minds and hearts of every individual. In a land of beauty populated by Scots Irish pioneers, cotton farmers, Native Americans, fishermen, and pirates, Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea is a chronicle of human failings and the power of redemption-and a probing narrative of which is the stronger force.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
328 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 19, 2024
5 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Jim Gulledge
2 books3 followersBiography
About the Author
Jim Gulledge was shaped by his large, Southern extended family and was taught at an early age never to let facts get in the way of a good story. Much of Jim’s own story has been lived out in the small village of Misenheimer in North Carolina. As a young man, Jim chose to attend Pfeiffer College where he met his wife, Linda. He has now worked there for the past thirty years currently serving as the Director of Academic Support Services and Assistant Professor of Developmental Studies. The passions of his academic life are helping young people in their life journeys and teaching a course every other year on the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Jim was prepared for his career by earning a B.A. in Christian Education from what is now Pfeiffer University, an M.A. in English from Clemson University, and a DMin. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.In his spare time he explores the nearby Uwharrie Mountains with his dog, Shasta; serves as a guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children in his community; and continues in his futile attempts to master the ukulele.
A Poor Man’s Supper was recently selected for inclusion in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
About the Author
Jim Gulledge was shaped by his large, Southern extended family and was taught at an early age never to let facts get in the way of a good story. Much of Jim’s own story has been lived out in the small village of Misenheimer in North Carolina. As a young man, Jim chose to attend Pfeiffer College where he met his wife, Linda. He has now worked there for the past thirty years currently serving as the Director of Academic Support Services and Assistant Professor of Developmental Studies. The passions of his academic life are helping young people in their life journeys and teaching a course every other year on the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Jim was prepared for his career by earning a B.A. in Christian Education from what is now Pfeiffer University, an M.A. in English from Clemson University, and a DMin. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.In his spare time he explores the nearby Uwharrie Mountains with his dog, Shasta; serves as a guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children in his community; and continues in his futile attempts to master the ukulele.
A Poor Man’s Supper was recently selected for inclusion in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 26, 2024
Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea is a pocket epic—all the elements of that genre without all the bother of a thousand pages. It has grand scope (over one hundred years of action across the entire landscape of North Carolina, from the Smoky Mountains to the islands off the seacoast); good guys and gals named Iris and Sam and Mattie and Big John, and very bad guys named Jagger and Dred; and even sly allusions to the epics that have come before, from The Odyssey to Native American, Norse and Christian myths.
One might even argue that the novel is three epics in one, each in the 80- to 120-page range, except that Jim Gulledge deftly ties the three stories together even over these vast swaths of time and space. One of those connections is withheld until the end of Part One and is revealed compactly—not in a mere seven words but in seven letters! I submit that anyone with a healthy emotional makeup cannot read those few characters without a chill on the nape or a lump in the throat.
Moreover, each of the three parts could be considered a Bildungsroman, with particular focus on the sexual development of young men. Any man can identify with a boy’s struggle to hide his arousal by a beautiful woman and with the seeming omniscience of these women, as when the hero of “Green Forest,” Josiah Buckland, tries to hide his response to the sexual aura of his future lover Vancie by draping his shirt loosely over his mid-section. Upon her departure, Vancie—the novel’s Rose to Josiah’s Jack Dawson—calls back over her shoulder, “You can tuck in your shirt now.”
There is plenty of such humor in the novel, and, though Gulledge is prone to overwriting at times—especially in his use of similes—one will also find much affecting, even lyrical prose, as when Josiah’s grandson Isaiah, just emerging from his WWII-induced muteness and mental incapacity, “reached deeply within the shrouded depths of his past and mined a single word from the darkness.” Elsewhere, Gulledge conveys a young agnostic’s discomfiture when he finds himself in “a nest of Jesus freaks.” There are fine aphorisms: from the narrator, expounding on the effect of technological development on the green forest, the red earth, and the towns hugging the blue sea: “Silence was replaced by noise, the individual by the collective, and the bond between human and earth by the tyranny of efficiency and the bottom line”; and from the novel’s many wise characters, as when in “Blue Sea,” Iris defends her boyfriend’s boorish mistreatment of his young nephew: “Hate and hurt look a lot alike.”
In his author’s note, Gulledge calls his book “a love letter” to North Carolina. Readers will understand that this isn’t a sloppy love that ignores the state’s racial history, fleets of insects, and oppressive humidity but a genuine, encompassing love for the land and the creatures, from the lowly menhaden ground into fertilizer that supported the economy of Beaufort and other coastal towns to the red-tailed hawks, gulls, ospreys, and hummingbirds that teem in the book’s skies. And, of course, there are the people. You will recognize these people, but you will read on to get to know them better.
One might even argue that the novel is three epics in one, each in the 80- to 120-page range, except that Jim Gulledge deftly ties the three stories together even over these vast swaths of time and space. One of those connections is withheld until the end of Part One and is revealed compactly—not in a mere seven words but in seven letters! I submit that anyone with a healthy emotional makeup cannot read those few characters without a chill on the nape or a lump in the throat.
Moreover, each of the three parts could be considered a Bildungsroman, with particular focus on the sexual development of young men. Any man can identify with a boy’s struggle to hide his arousal by a beautiful woman and with the seeming omniscience of these women, as when the hero of “Green Forest,” Josiah Buckland, tries to hide his response to the sexual aura of his future lover Vancie by draping his shirt loosely over his mid-section. Upon her departure, Vancie—the novel’s Rose to Josiah’s Jack Dawson—calls back over her shoulder, “You can tuck in your shirt now.”
There is plenty of such humor in the novel, and, though Gulledge is prone to overwriting at times—especially in his use of similes—one will also find much affecting, even lyrical prose, as when Josiah’s grandson Isaiah, just emerging from his WWII-induced muteness and mental incapacity, “reached deeply within the shrouded depths of his past and mined a single word from the darkness.” Elsewhere, Gulledge conveys a young agnostic’s discomfiture when he finds himself in “a nest of Jesus freaks.” There are fine aphorisms: from the narrator, expounding on the effect of technological development on the green forest, the red earth, and the towns hugging the blue sea: “Silence was replaced by noise, the individual by the collective, and the bond between human and earth by the tyranny of efficiency and the bottom line”; and from the novel’s many wise characters, as when in “Blue Sea,” Iris defends her boyfriend’s boorish mistreatment of his young nephew: “Hate and hurt look a lot alike.”
In his author’s note, Gulledge calls his book “a love letter” to North Carolina. Readers will understand that this isn’t a sloppy love that ignores the state’s racial history, fleets of insects, and oppressive humidity but a genuine, encompassing love for the land and the creatures, from the lowly menhaden ground into fertilizer that supported the economy of Beaufort and other coastal towns to the red-tailed hawks, gulls, ospreys, and hummingbirds that teem in the book’s skies. And, of course, there are the people. You will recognize these people, but you will read on to get to know them better.
January 12, 2025
I want to give this book a 4-1/2 star rating; I very rarely give a book 5 stars so a 4-1/2 is getting close! I just finished Jim Gulledge's second book, "Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea". This is a book that starts in the mountains of NC (green forest), moves along to the Piedmont of NC (red clay), and then to the coast of NC (blue sea). It's the story of three families, how their stories intertwine, and how alike but mostly different each generation is. The common character in the book is a pocket watch, one that was owned by Josiah's grandfather, and passed on to the love of his life, Vancie. The watch isn't mentioned again until the next generation appears, and then later on to someone in the next generation. I often caught myself cheering on some characters while wishing a few of the others would just disappear but that usually doesn't make for a very satisfying story.
The human (non-watch) characters are shown in a lot of detail, such that I felt I knew some of these people or could pretty much picture them. I think there's just the right amount of character detail in this book, enough to know them but to keep the story moving along.
I am very familiar with Peachland; have family who live in Anson County and surrounding counties. The author got that setting just right. I'm looking forward to reading his other book soon.
The human (non-watch) characters are shown in a lot of detail, such that I felt I knew some of these people or could pretty much picture them. I think there's just the right amount of character detail in this book, enough to know them but to keep the story moving along.
I am very familiar with Peachland; have family who live in Anson County and surrounding counties. The author got that setting just right. I'm looking forward to reading his other book soon.
July 8, 2024
Enchanting, enthralling, and a true ode to the scenic wonders of North Carolina, "Green Forest, Red Earth, and Blue Sea" does so much more than pay homage to its setting and is boundless in its exploration of strife, love, loss, and the inextricable links we have to the past.
Readers are quickly introduced to and charmed by the sensory eloquence of Gulledge's style. Each chapter is delivered with a unique flair and attention to sensation, bringing the characters and settings to life with intense and palpable vibrancy.
Tapping into the lives and souls of so many rich characters with so many distinctive and myriad experiences is an unmistakable talent Gulledge puts on display throughout the book, as the chapters span decades of culminating events and intertwining paths that collide and coalesce in meaningful, beautiful, and unexpected ways.
If you're looking for a truly immersive and original work with a captivating plot packaged and delivered through lush, and often lyrical narrations, look no further.
Readers are quickly introduced to and charmed by the sensory eloquence of Gulledge's style. Each chapter is delivered with a unique flair and attention to sensation, bringing the characters and settings to life with intense and palpable vibrancy.
Tapping into the lives and souls of so many rich characters with so many distinctive and myriad experiences is an unmistakable talent Gulledge puts on display throughout the book, as the chapters span decades of culminating events and intertwining paths that collide and coalesce in meaningful, beautiful, and unexpected ways.
If you're looking for a truly immersive and original work with a captivating plot packaged and delivered through lush, and often lyrical narrations, look no further.
July 19, 2024
This review is for the first two parts of Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea.
Part 1: Green Forest - Fantastic. This was released as A Poor Man's Supper in 2017 and now is part 1 of this novel. I did not want the story to end. I wanted to know more about these characters and now with the release of the next two parts, the story continues. The author once told me that each character correlates with a figure from mythology. After seven years I am still trying to figure out what characters correspond to what figures from mythology.
Part 2: Red Earth - While being a short read, Red Earth really packs a punch. Each chapter has so much going on, so much being described, at times I had to go back and re-read sections to make sure I did not miss something. I let out a shout when the twist is revealed near the end of this part of the book. Again, I am wondering about the characters in this part and their corresponding figures from mythology.
Part 3: Blue Sea - Coming soon.
Highly recommended.
Part 1: Green Forest - Fantastic. This was released as A Poor Man's Supper in 2017 and now is part 1 of this novel. I did not want the story to end. I wanted to know more about these characters and now with the release of the next two parts, the story continues. The author once told me that each character correlates with a figure from mythology. After seven years I am still trying to figure out what characters correspond to what figures from mythology.
Part 2: Red Earth - While being a short read, Red Earth really packs a punch. Each chapter has so much going on, so much being described, at times I had to go back and re-read sections to make sure I did not miss something. I let out a shout when the twist is revealed near the end of this part of the book. Again, I am wondering about the characters in this part and their corresponding figures from mythology.
Part 3: Blue Sea - Coming soon.
Highly recommended.
July 1, 2024
This story was a beautiful tale. I connected deeply with the book and its storytelling. The way each story intersects and leads back to the initial one made the reading experience even more enjoyable and satisfying. Dr. Gulledge’s writing allowed you to envision the characters in your mind. His storytelling is powerful, particularly in how he weaves different stories and characters together. You cared for them and their plights. It was personal. I was drawn to this book as I knew all these locations. It added an extra layer of personal connection to the narrative. My family is from Anson County, and most still live in Wadesboro and Polkton. His storytelling ability drew you in. I was sad when the story ended as I wanted more. Books like this, draw you in and make you care deeply for the characters and their journeys. It is something extraordinary.
August 15, 2024
Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea by James Gulledge can be treated as one long novel or three connected novellas, and it works well with either interpretation. It's a love story about the history and landscape of North Carolina, with prose as gorgeous – as glorious- as the places being described. I felt the breezes, smelled the air, heard the sounds of nature and of humanity – it was an immersive experience.
Equally gripping was the actual plot – family drama, human drama – explorations of love and loss, life and death, history and the present, with rich characters. I particularly liked the use of the pocket watch as inanimate observer and connective tissue.
If you love epic storytelling that perfectly merges a grand scope with the tiny details that breathe life into the written word, you will love this book.
Goes well with: sweet tea and fried clams.
Equally gripping was the actual plot – family drama, human drama – explorations of love and loss, life and death, history and the present, with rich characters. I particularly liked the use of the pocket watch as inanimate observer and connective tissue.
If you love epic storytelling that perfectly merges a grand scope with the tiny details that breathe life into the written word, you will love this book.
Goes well with: sweet tea and fried clams.
June 30, 2024
Through three smaller stories tied up into one, Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea, follows heartbreak, love, loss, family, and a particular watch through decades of storytelling. The men carry and pass on the narrative torch for most of the story, though I would have loved to have a few more chapters with the women. The characters in this book are honest and contain the rawness of their time periods. The journey from the beginning to the end was certainly some ride.
July 20, 2024
“Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea” is an intriguing novel of one story in three landscapes. Gulledge’s love of nature is obvious, and the North Carolina biomes are important characters in the story. It is a story of grace, redemption, and love. Not the cheesy grace of Joel Osteen or the sentimental grace of Southern evangelism. Rather, it is the painful and bloody redemption of crucifixion and resurrection. Well worth the read.
June 7, 2024
Beautifully written story of love and life over generations. I felt like I was there with the characters due to the evocative descriptions of locales and people. Smiles, tears, hope, it has it all. I can’t wait for another book by Jim Gulledge.
June 25, 2024
Jim Gulledge has a gift for language and storytelling, which shines through in this book. Characters are interesting and diverse through the generations yet linked in seemingly imperceptible ways. Some particular scenes are so vivid as to get your heart racing and your pages turning.
December 6, 2025
Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea is a beautiful Southern fiction set of short stories by Jim Gulledge. I fell instantly in love with these stories that take place in the state I call home - North Carolina. Each of the three stories takes place in a different part of the state and follow three connected families. The stories, though they take place during different times and in different places, stay connected through a family heirloom.
Unlike most books I enjoy this one has many varied characters, so there isn't one character to fall in love with. Instead, readers fall in love with place. And Jim did an excellent job helping readers come to love North Carolina, from the green hills of the mountains to the red clay of the piedmont to the sandy shores of the ocean. I also enjoyed discovering how each family connected with one another and how they managed to cover the state in a few generations.
We start in the mountains as trains bring change - meeting two young lovers whose time together is fleeting. Next, we find ourselves saving peaches from a deadly spring freeze. Can this couple eek out a living in the clay? The last story asks us to cheer for an orphan boy and the chance to find buried treasure against the backdrop of a tropical storm. And finally, catch a quick glimpse of a story yet to be told when a boy from the beach glimpses a girl from the mountains - and we feel that it will all start again.
Jim tells a delightful series of stories, and you won't want to miss this book. It would make a great gift for any NC native!
Unlike most books I enjoy this one has many varied characters, so there isn't one character to fall in love with. Instead, readers fall in love with place. And Jim did an excellent job helping readers come to love North Carolina, from the green hills of the mountains to the red clay of the piedmont to the sandy shores of the ocean. I also enjoyed discovering how each family connected with one another and how they managed to cover the state in a few generations.
We start in the mountains as trains bring change - meeting two young lovers whose time together is fleeting. Next, we find ourselves saving peaches from a deadly spring freeze. Can this couple eek out a living in the clay? The last story asks us to cheer for an orphan boy and the chance to find buried treasure against the backdrop of a tropical storm. And finally, catch a quick glimpse of a story yet to be told when a boy from the beach glimpses a girl from the mountains - and we feel that it will all start again.
Jim tells a delightful series of stories, and you won't want to miss this book. It would make a great gift for any NC native!
August 24, 2024
This book was captivating from the first few pages. I enjoyed the unique and intriguing stories with a bit of mystery intertwined. A must read!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews