Donna Cody: A Tall Tale

by Jeanie Murphy

Donna Cody is an aspiring fiddler with contentious ideas about what constitutes the great cathedral of folk music. She dreams of John and Alan Lomax camping on the side of the road, Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles trekking through the mysterious Appalachians, collecting their treasures. Like them, she longs to find the true old-time players of tunes and singers of songs before it's too late.
In her sky-blue Rambler, with her newfound banjo-playing, cigar-smoking, proverb-spouting friend, Sandy Panther, Donna Cody will collide with:
• a dog named Buster and some cows
• folksingers
• earnest young Christians
• a writer
• an innkeeper
• prison guards and their prisoners
• a shantyboater
• feral cats
• a Nashville record producer
• and more.
Will Donna Cody find the living music without getting herself and her companions killed? Will Sandy Panther find fame and fortune and a recording contract? It's a dark and mysterious time, with no Internet or tiny handheld thingamajigs to help out. But together, maybe these two women can find just what they need, even if it’s not always what they’ve been looking for.



Jeanie Murphy plays the banjo and fiddle. She is a retired but not retiring English instructor.

325 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 15, 2018

About the author

Jeanie Murphy grew up in New England and went to Beloit College and Portland State University, where she received her BA and MA in English. She has worked as a strawberry picker, lifeguard, library page, factory hand, apple picker, banjo instructor (if you can call that work), technical editor, and English instructor. She is now retired but not retiring. She has an album on CD Baby called The Time's Been Sweet in which she plays the banjo. She has published a few minor things here and there and plays music in a band called The Possum Carvers or The Glutton-Free Loafers depending on what kind of music they're playing. This is her first novel. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula.

Reviews

[Isaac Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful, raucous romp through music, folk tradition, and The South. Serious folk music conundrums are hashed between brawls, jam sessions, and body fluids. You won’t forget these characters easily.

[Colleen Anibas · Rating 1 out of 5]

i think i got through 15 pages. almost gave up after reading the prologue, but thought i'd see if it got better. after skipping past the 5 pages of characters i only got as far as the page that detailed all the obscure music books on her shelf. yawn, that was it for me.