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The Sky Club
"When I'm dead and buried . . . you get the hell out of here . . . Make a life somewhere else . . . a life that I can't even imagine."
Jo Salter, a woman from the North Carolina mountains, sets about constructing a new life for herself in Asheville in the wake of her mother's death. A life that no one--including her mother--could have imagined. Jo has a gift. She is a mathematical prodigy--a woman who sees and thinks in numbers. She secures a job as a teller at Central Bank & Trust, where she recreates herself as a modern woman and rises through the professional ranks. While working at the bank, Jo becomes fascinated by Levi Arrowood, the dark and mysterious manager of the Sky Club, an infamous speakeasy and jazz club on the mountainside above town.
When the Great Depression brings Central Bank & Trust down in a seismic crash, Jo is forced to find a new home and job. She finds both at the Sky Club, where she strikes a partnership with the alluring Arrowood as she is drawn deeper into a glamorous and precarious life of bootlegging, jazz, and love.
The Sky Club is the story of money, greed, and life after the crash from the eyes of one remarkable woman as she creates her own imagined life.
When the Great Depression brings Central Bank & Trust down in a seismic crash, Jo is forced to find a new home and job. She finds both at the Sky Club, where she strikes a partnership with the alluring Arrowood as she is drawn deeper into a glamorous and precarious life of bootlegging, jazz, and love.
The Sky Club is the story of money, greed, and life after the crash from the eyes of one remarkable woman as she creates her own imagined life.
421 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 19, 2022
38 people are currently reading
4052 people want to read
About the author
Terry Roberts
41 books148 followersTerry Roberts is the author of seven celebrated novels: A Short Time to Stay Here (winner of the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Fiction and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); That Bright Land (winner of the Thomas Wolfe Literary Award, the James Still Award for Writing About the Appalachian South and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); and, The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival (a finalist for the 2019 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction), My Mistress’ Eyes are Raven Black (Finalist for the 2022 Best Paperback Original Novel by the International Thriller Writers Organization), The Sky Club (a finalist for the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Literary Award), The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape, and In the Fullness of Time.
Roberts is a lifelong teacher and educational reformer as well as an award-winning novelist. He is a native of the mountains of Western North Carolina—born and bred. His ancestors include six generations of mountain farmers, as well as the bootleggers and preachers who appear in his novels. He was raised close by his grandmother, Belva Anderson Roberts, who was born in 1888 and passed to him the magic of the past along with the grit and humor of mountain story telling.
Roberts is the Director of the National Paideia Center and lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, Lynn.
Roberts is a lifelong teacher and educational reformer as well as an award-winning novelist. He is a native of the mountains of Western North Carolina—born and bred. His ancestors include six generations of mountain farmers, as well as the bootleggers and preachers who appear in his novels. He was raised close by his grandmother, Belva Anderson Roberts, who was born in 1888 and passed to him the magic of the past along with the grit and humor of mountain story telling.
Roberts is the Director of the National Paideia Center and lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, Lynn.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
June 6, 2022
Terry Roberts delights with this tale of boom and bust in Asheville, NC. Spanning the years of the stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, THE SKY CLUB features an unforgettable heroine in Jo Salter, a young woman from the mountain hinterlands, whose dying mother sends her away from the farm with instructions to make a different life for herself. With a nearly preternatural gift for mathematics, equaled only by her love of dancing to jazz music, Jo quickly becomes enamored of the city life she finds in Asheville. But she just as quickly becomes disillusioned by the snobbery of the Country Club set and takes refuge in an expatriate community of other country folk who have moved to the city, including Levi Arrowood, a bootlegger and proprietor of the titular Sky Club. It's a love story with grit and danger and the sweet burn of apple brandy from the high peaks. Terry Roberts's novels always satisfy readers hungry for a blend of history and suspenseful narrative. And in THE SKY CLUB, he thrills us yet again--with a story of corrupt bankers, hard-boiled booze-runners, and the jazz age in the mountain South.
March 23, 2022
The Sky Club is Roberts’ best work to date. The compelling story of plucky Jo Salter’s introduction to city life after living deep in the mountains, layered with the story of the bank crash of 1930 that crippled Asheville, and the story of the mysterious Levi who isn’t afraid to bend or break laws, makes for a true page turner. I highly recommend this book!
September 5, 2022
This new book by Terry Roberts may well be his best so far. The story deftly weaves together the very different worlds of traditional, subsistence family farming in Appalachia, and the lively, modern scene of Asheville with its fancy houses, jazz joints, and people driven by money and status. Jo Salter, a multi-dimensional principal character, straddles the two worlds, and has a front seat at the banking table when the crash of 1929-30 hits with full force. She finds refuge and a kindred spirit as the plot unfolds, and we explore what lasts amid upheaval.
Readers new to Terry Roberts’ work will find a fast-paced and exciting story, and his long-time fans will be eager for the new book from this talented novelist. Others will be in the thrall of historical Asheville itself. All will be captivated by Roberts’ skill with character development, setting, and atmosphere which pull the reader in, and the narrative which keeps us turning the pages of The Sky Club.
Readers new to Terry Roberts’ work will find a fast-paced and exciting story, and his long-time fans will be eager for the new book from this talented novelist. Others will be in the thrall of historical Asheville itself. All will be captivated by Roberts’ skill with character development, setting, and atmosphere which pull the reader in, and the narrative which keeps us turning the pages of The Sky Club.
February 9, 2024
This book is ELECTRIC! The Sky Club follows Jo Salter through her life adjusting from country girl to modern city girl. As she navigates both identities and fulfills the promise from her late mother to “go and create a life she could never have imagined,” Jo breaks stereotypes of women from day one in Asheville. She steps out in wool trousers, thrives in her bank job, and earns the respect of the big wig VPs as the banks crash in 1929. With a mix of witty dialogue, a blossoming love story, bootlegger clubs, and some moonshine, this story was everything and more.
November 15, 2024
My book club wanted to read something by an Asheville author to help support the local community after the recent devastating hurricane damage. For that, and because I do love the city of Asheville, I thought it was a perfectly fine book. The story was about a girl from the mountains that moves to the city to make a life for herself. She worked at a bank and dated a bootlegger during the Great Depression. In general, the story was simple but not badly written, so I settled on 3 stars.
July 21, 2024
4 stars firm. I enjoyed the plot of this book, the characters and of course the setting of Asheville. The first 3/4 of the book were great. The last 1/4 seemed to lack focus and then it just ended.
May 4, 2022
In this novel, set in depression/prohibition era Asheville, NC, Terry Roberts gives us Jo Salter, one of the strongest, most interesting female protagonists I've ever read. A farm girl with an unlikely gift for math, she is fearless, funny, and not afraid to go after what she wants. Great tension and peril from bootlegging, police raids and robberies, but (spoiler alert) a happy ending. Loved it.
August 4, 2023
This was a good book and an interesting story. I haven't read many books from this era and part of the country, so that was new and thought-provoking which I enjoyed.
I was close to giving this 4 stars, but I couldn't get past the fact that the main character's voice (Jo) didn't feel authentic to me. I didn't know anything about the author when I started reading and kept saying to myself, no women I know would use certain words used or think to themselves like this. And maybe there are women that totally relate to Jo and how she thinks, etc., but I didn't. And once I realized a man wrote this, that clouded my objectivity and all I could do was focus on this even more. I understand a woman from the country 100 years ago is not going to talk and think like I do, but to me it still felt inauthentic and the ending was abrupt.
I was close to giving this 4 stars, but I couldn't get past the fact that the main character's voice (Jo) didn't feel authentic to me. I didn't know anything about the author when I started reading and kept saying to myself, no women I know would use certain words used or think to themselves like this. And maybe there are women that totally relate to Jo and how she thinks, etc., but I didn't. And once I realized a man wrote this, that clouded my objectivity and all I could do was focus on this even more. I understand a woman from the country 100 years ago is not going to talk and think like I do, but to me it still felt inauthentic and the ending was abrupt.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 15, 2023
The book had some interesting writing in between loads of repetition and unrealistic dramas! I don’t enjoy reading books with black and white characters. Even less, characters that fake surprise at everything that falls into their lap. A farm girl walks into town and immediately lands a job where she climbs the corporate ladder 5 steps at a time and teaches the bank’s board of directors how to read numbers in 1930, also bewitches the heart of the most handsome and richest bachelor (and his father) in town as well as the most mysterious club owner, even inherits money at the most convenient time while drinking hard every night, dancing to jazz and wearing 1 dress that flows like moonlight. Give us a break!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 18, 2022
This book is set in Asheville and Madison County, North Carolina. Author Terry Roberts uses historical fact, combined with his vivid writing style, to paint an intimate picture of the 1930 bank crash and its disastrous effects on the mountain region of North Carolina. The story’s colorful heroine, Jo Salter, survives and thrives, thanks to her wit and math skills.
June 9, 2024
Started off better than it finished
December 3, 2024
Entertaining novel about Asheville (my hometown) at the beginning of the Great Depression. Robert’s plays with the historical facts, but conjures up an enjoyable read.
October 24, 2023
My newest favorite heroine! Smart and sassy Jo Salter is a woman I’d like to bend an elbow with.
October 20, 2025
I had high hopes for this book after hearing the author speak at a local bookstore and hearing about living in Asheville from my mother, stepfather, and maternal grandparents. The plot itself is compelling and interesting, but it required little thought. Everything about the plot is straightforward, so there’s no need for deeper thinking about the plot or analysis. There’s enough repetition that if you don’t pick up on an event or a theme when it’s introduced, you will by the third or fourth time it’s used. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for people who read to escape. I would have preferred something left to the imagination or interpretation here.
There were also numerous grammatical errors, aside from those inherent to the mountain language that was invoked throughout, and character discrepancies that disappointed me. At one point, the author referred to the Biltmore County Club instead of the Biltmore Country Club. I stopped counting after four such grammatical errors. One character, the narrator’s father, is named Nathaniel at one point (page 132), but then introduced as Lewis when readers meet him and referred to as such through the remainder of the novel (like on page 208). The narrator goes to live with her aunt and uncle in the second chapter following her mother’s death. On page 13, readers learn that her aunt was her mother’s sister, but on page 211, her uncle notes that he shared her mother’s father. Differences like this distract from what could have been an otherwise smooth narrative.
There were also numerous grammatical errors, aside from those inherent to the mountain language that was invoked throughout, and character discrepancies that disappointed me. At one point, the author referred to the Biltmore County Club instead of the Biltmore Country Club. I stopped counting after four such grammatical errors. One character, the narrator’s father, is named Nathaniel at one point (page 132), but then introduced as Lewis when readers meet him and referred to as such through the remainder of the novel (like on page 208). The narrator goes to live with her aunt and uncle in the second chapter following her mother’s death. On page 13, readers learn that her aunt was her mother’s sister, but on page 211, her uncle notes that he shared her mother’s father. Differences like this distract from what could have been an otherwise smooth narrative.
September 11, 2022
“Land.
Up home, on Big Pine and places like it, the land was where you were born and buried. Where you lived and died. The land was beautiful and harsh and, in its own bitersweet way, the thing that made you. In all seasons and all phases of the moon. It's where you planted and harvested, and it's where you were planted and harvested.
But not in town, not in Asheville. Land in town was a commodity - to be bought, sold, and traded. And God help you if you held onto a parcel long enough to like it, let alone love it. Land was meant to be kept moving, just like money, because it was money.
Up home, the land was a lover, even if a rough one at times; in town, land was a whore, bought and sold.”- Terry Roberts, The Sky Club 🌅
.
.
.
Jo Salter sets about constructing a new life for herself in Asheville from the BC mountains in the wake of her mother’s death. Jo is a mathematical genius. Working as a teller at Central Bank & Trust she recreates herself and rises through the professional ranks.
When the Great Depression brings Central B&T down in a seismic crash, Jo is forced to find a new home and job. She finds both at the Sky Club, an infamous speakeasy and jazz club on the mountainside above town. She strikes a partnership with the manager, Levi Arrowood, as she gets drawn into the glamorous and precarious life of bootlegging, jazz, and love.
.
.
.
Jo was a GREAT main character, I loved her! I also loved Levi and how much he respected Jo and her intellect. Knowing this took place during the 1920s crash and 1930s Great Depression, I assumed this would be a story of loss. Roberts surprised me and instead made this a story of how to survive and even thrive in even the most adverse circumstances.
💜 Thank you to @turnerpub for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review 💜
Up home, on Big Pine and places like it, the land was where you were born and buried. Where you lived and died. The land was beautiful and harsh and, in its own bitersweet way, the thing that made you. In all seasons and all phases of the moon. It's where you planted and harvested, and it's where you were planted and harvested.
But not in town, not in Asheville. Land in town was a commodity - to be bought, sold, and traded. And God help you if you held onto a parcel long enough to like it, let alone love it. Land was meant to be kept moving, just like money, because it was money.
Up home, the land was a lover, even if a rough one at times; in town, land was a whore, bought and sold.”- Terry Roberts, The Sky Club 🌅
.
.
.
Jo Salter sets about constructing a new life for herself in Asheville from the BC mountains in the wake of her mother’s death. Jo is a mathematical genius. Working as a teller at Central Bank & Trust she recreates herself and rises through the professional ranks.
When the Great Depression brings Central B&T down in a seismic crash, Jo is forced to find a new home and job. She finds both at the Sky Club, an infamous speakeasy and jazz club on the mountainside above town. She strikes a partnership with the manager, Levi Arrowood, as she gets drawn into the glamorous and precarious life of bootlegging, jazz, and love.
.
.
.
Jo was a GREAT main character, I loved her! I also loved Levi and how much he respected Jo and her intellect. Knowing this took place during the 1920s crash and 1930s Great Depression, I assumed this would be a story of loss. Roberts surprised me and instead made this a story of how to survive and even thrive in even the most adverse circumstances.
💜 Thank you to @turnerpub for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review 💜
August 18, 2022
“She stroked my hand and told me two large things. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” was the first. “Don’t you every feel sorry for me. I chose this life, and I loved this place. Loved your father often as not. Bottom line, I chose this right here, annd I was up to the task, both the daytime of it and the night…I chose it and it’s my life…But it is not your life.” This was the second thing. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I mean when this is finished,” she murmured. “When I’m dead and buried…you get the hell out of here. Make a life for…” Her voice was shriveling up, and I leaned over her, for at that point she was no longer contagious. My chest against her chest, my ear close by her lips to hear the rest. “Make a life somewhere else…a life that I can’t even imagine.”” p. 4
“My eyes, which I guess really meant my brain, never lost the habit of seeing numbers differently. The problem figures in the loan department report quivered on the page from the very first time I saw them, despite the fact that I didn’t really know how to read the report. And some didn’t just quiver; they glowed that weird rust-brown that meant mistakes compounded here and totals corrupted here.” p. 117
“By the summer of 1930 I’d been in big, bold Asheville for over a year. And as summer turned into fall that year, you might say that the quilt scraps out of which I stitched my life all had to do with work. You’d be wrong; there were some stray bits and pieces hidden away in the pattern that were nighttime dark and mysterious, but mostly, it looked like Jo Salter went to work at the Central Bank & Trust Company. You’d say she was consumed by it.” p. 145
“I felt like I’d slipped into the moving picture of his life for a few minutes, an unknown actress for sure, and probably playing a minor role, but still I was in the frame, and it was an easy place to be.”
p.205
“My eyes, which I guess really meant my brain, never lost the habit of seeing numbers differently. The problem figures in the loan department report quivered on the page from the very first time I saw them, despite the fact that I didn’t really know how to read the report. And some didn’t just quiver; they glowed that weird rust-brown that meant mistakes compounded here and totals corrupted here.” p. 117
“By the summer of 1930 I’d been in big, bold Asheville for over a year. And as summer turned into fall that year, you might say that the quilt scraps out of which I stitched my life all had to do with work. You’d be wrong; there were some stray bits and pieces hidden away in the pattern that were nighttime dark and mysterious, but mostly, it looked like Jo Salter went to work at the Central Bank & Trust Company. You’d say she was consumed by it.” p. 145
“I felt like I’d slipped into the moving picture of his life for a few minutes, an unknown actress for sure, and probably playing a minor role, but still I was in the frame, and it was an easy place to be.”
p.205
July 30, 2023
We all want better for the next generation, for our kids to have what we did not, for society to advance in some way, shape or form. But, to what end?
In this historical fiction book (1929-1931), we meet 26-year-old farm girl Josephine Salter, as her mother is leaving this earth. Her wish is for her daughter to leave farm life behind and make something of herself, something her mother could never imagine. Josephine does just that. By having a way with numbers (and a family connection), she lands a job in the town bank. As she reinvents herself (with the help of her cousin Sissy) and becomes known as Jo, she works her way up in the bank (literally to the top floor - unheard of for a woman) and manages to find herself in the secluded Sky Club often enough to catch the eye of the club’s manager, known as Arrowood. As these two form a connection, time ticks on and the Great Depression hits. Everything around Jo starts to crumble, but she keeps her wits about her, and stays true to her mother’s dying wish.
I enjoyed the way this book described events during the Great Depression, and that time period as a whole (treatment of women/rights, people of color, prohibition, poverty, etc.). I thought the book was a bit drab about a quarter of the way in, but picked back up at the halfway point. I am a supper club lover, and my favorite is named Timmerman’s (in East Dubuque, on the top of a hill, https://timmermanssupperclub.com), so the premise of the book spoke to me. Overall, I’d recommend as I feel that Jo hit the mark, but I didn’t much care for the repetitive line of her mother’s dying wish throughout the book…seemed overkill.
In this historical fiction book (1929-1931), we meet 26-year-old farm girl Josephine Salter, as her mother is leaving this earth. Her wish is for her daughter to leave farm life behind and make something of herself, something her mother could never imagine. Josephine does just that. By having a way with numbers (and a family connection), she lands a job in the town bank. As she reinvents herself (with the help of her cousin Sissy) and becomes known as Jo, she works her way up in the bank (literally to the top floor - unheard of for a woman) and manages to find herself in the secluded Sky Club often enough to catch the eye of the club’s manager, known as Arrowood. As these two form a connection, time ticks on and the Great Depression hits. Everything around Jo starts to crumble, but she keeps her wits about her, and stays true to her mother’s dying wish.
I enjoyed the way this book described events during the Great Depression, and that time period as a whole (treatment of women/rights, people of color, prohibition, poverty, etc.). I thought the book was a bit drab about a quarter of the way in, but picked back up at the halfway point. I am a supper club lover, and my favorite is named Timmerman’s (in East Dubuque, on the top of a hill, https://timmermanssupperclub.com), so the premise of the book spoke to me. Overall, I’d recommend as I feel that Jo hit the mark, but I didn’t much care for the repetitive line of her mother’s dying wish throughout the book…seemed overkill.
July 22, 2022
Listen. Go get The Sky Club by Terry Roberts. Just go!🏃🏻♀️
When @turnerpub reached out to us asking us to feature or review The Sky Club, it sounds like a great story, and we were excited to read it!
I didn’t have a lot of time to read this before posting about it, so I thought ok, I’ll start this book and get a feel for it, post it and then finish it later.
BUT, once I started this, I knew. This is the kind of book I’m always searching for. The description can’t do it justice because, it’s the brilliant writing that draws you in, and then you can’t put it down. It’s a coming of age story, but it has the depth and feeling that will make me remember it for a long time.
Jo Salter is a mathematical prodigy and in 1929 when she starts out as the lowest person at Central Bank and Trust, she just hopes to take home a paycheck. Very quickly the people around her realize how valuable she is, but after the stock market crash of 1929 the whole city falls apart.
I adore Jo, I love all of the choices that she made, and I hope hope hope that @terryrobertsauthor will consider writing another book about her, so I can see how the rest of her life plays out.
The Sky Club gave me Where the Crawdads Sing vibes, partly because it’s based in North Carolina, but mostly because of the feeling it gave me.
Thank you so much @turnerpub for this gifted copy!
You can find The Sky Club on our Amazon storefront, it published on 7/19/22!
I hope you get a chance to read this one!🧜🏼♀️🌺
When @turnerpub reached out to us asking us to feature or review The Sky Club, it sounds like a great story, and we were excited to read it!
I didn’t have a lot of time to read this before posting about it, so I thought ok, I’ll start this book and get a feel for it, post it and then finish it later.
BUT, once I started this, I knew. This is the kind of book I’m always searching for. The description can’t do it justice because, it’s the brilliant writing that draws you in, and then you can’t put it down. It’s a coming of age story, but it has the depth and feeling that will make me remember it for a long time.
Jo Salter is a mathematical prodigy and in 1929 when she starts out as the lowest person at Central Bank and Trust, she just hopes to take home a paycheck. Very quickly the people around her realize how valuable she is, but after the stock market crash of 1929 the whole city falls apart.
I adore Jo, I love all of the choices that she made, and I hope hope hope that @terryrobertsauthor will consider writing another book about her, so I can see how the rest of her life plays out.
The Sky Club gave me Where the Crawdads Sing vibes, partly because it’s based in North Carolina, but mostly because of the feeling it gave me.
Thank you so much @turnerpub for this gifted copy!
You can find The Sky Club on our Amazon storefront, it published on 7/19/22!
I hope you get a chance to read this one!🧜🏼♀️🌺
November 7, 2024
Historical fiction picked up at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville, NC 5 days before Hurricane Helene ripped through western North Carolina. This author was recommended to me by a bookseller there as I was seeking local authors.
Its what I refer to as "lite" fiction. The story is good, the writing is average. A youngish woman moves from the hills to Asheville and gets a job in a bank just prior to the crash of the waning days of 1929. The bank crashes along with the fortunes of all the executives making all the money.
She hooks up with a bootlegger who manages a Jazz Speakeasy in the hills on the outskirts of Asheville, where the executives spent lots of money. They fall in love.
While the world crashes around them, they build their bootlegging business, make an adequate amount of money and survive the depression.
Characters were not developed, mere shells of human beings though the writing is ok...perhaps its my mood but I give everything a four so...plus, why waste life on a 3, 2, or 1? I finished it.
Its what I refer to as "lite" fiction. The story is good, the writing is average. A youngish woman moves from the hills to Asheville and gets a job in a bank just prior to the crash of the waning days of 1929. The bank crashes along with the fortunes of all the executives making all the money.
She hooks up with a bootlegger who manages a Jazz Speakeasy in the hills on the outskirts of Asheville, where the executives spent lots of money. They fall in love.
While the world crashes around them, they build their bootlegging business, make an adequate amount of money and survive the depression.
Characters were not developed, mere shells of human beings though the writing is ok...perhaps its my mood but I give everything a four so...plus, why waste life on a 3, 2, or 1? I finished it.
September 10, 2024
Man, that was good. Few critiques tho:
First, Jo sometimes acted more like a man than a woman. For example, she spends like one page grieving her uncle, and just one chapter grieving her father. Yea I get it, we don’t want to have to listen to her whining all the time, but it can easily give the impression that she doesn’t care.
Also, Levi and her were cute sometimes but also sometimes she’s just too much? Like he’s not perfect but any means, but neither is she really, but I would say that he is more likable than she is(sometimes).
Also I wanted Mack and pansy to end up together they would’ve been adorable.
Oh and I wanted more time spend on Gordon and Jeter(Levi’s brother and dad) but guess not.
That’s honestly it. Overall, pretty solid book, don’t know if I’d read it again, but it’s alright. Don’t love it, and don’t hate it.
First, Jo sometimes acted more like a man than a woman. For example, she spends like one page grieving her uncle, and just one chapter grieving her father. Yea I get it, we don’t want to have to listen to her whining all the time, but it can easily give the impression that she doesn’t care.
Also, Levi and her were cute sometimes but also sometimes she’s just too much? Like he’s not perfect but any means, but neither is she really, but I would say that he is more likable than she is(sometimes).
Also I wanted Mack and pansy to end up together they would’ve been adorable.
Oh and I wanted more time spend on Gordon and Jeter(Levi’s brother and dad) but guess not.
That’s honestly it. Overall, pretty solid book, don’t know if I’d read it again, but it’s alright. Don’t love it, and don’t hate it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 8, 2022
A Story of Time and Place
The Sky Place tells a first person narrative about the place of Asheville, NC and Madison County, which lies northwest of Asheville down the French Broad River. Terry Roberts tells the story in the person of Jo, a country girl moved to the “city” a the request of her dying mother. The time of novel is the early years of the Great Depression. Stories have been written about how Americans dealt with this terrible time in the American story but none have told the story as well as Roberts does from a small city perspective with two dynamic main characters who you soon come to love as your own family. An insightful story into how the depression affected the plain country folk in the hills of North Carolina.
The Sky Place tells a first person narrative about the place of Asheville, NC and Madison County, which lies northwest of Asheville down the French Broad River. Terry Roberts tells the story in the person of Jo, a country girl moved to the “city” a the request of her dying mother. The time of novel is the early years of the Great Depression. Stories have been written about how Americans dealt with this terrible time in the American story but none have told the story as well as Roberts does from a small city perspective with two dynamic main characters who you soon come to love as your own family. An insightful story into how the depression affected the plain country folk in the hills of North Carolina.
September 6, 2022
I'm not sure someone not from here would enjoy it more or less than I did. I enjoyed the descriptions of the area and knowing I've stood where these characters lived. The way the characters spoke and behaved was a fairly accurate representation of the people here. As a Western North Carolina native, the portrayal of our culture didn't offend me and that's saying a lot. I felt my grandmother in the character of Jo. The phrases she used, her tenacity and her connection to home. I guess the only real criticism I have, is that I couldn't find the overall theme. "Make a life I couldn't imagine" is fairly vague and I couldn't even tell if that's what she was trying to do. I feel like a lot of loose ends didn't get tied.
July 20, 2022
I love books about strong women who have the imagination to see and construct a life on their own without depending on others to tell them how to live. Jo Salter, the heroine of this novel tells her own story in her own voice, and there were times when I thought she was speaking directly to me, even through she lived her life a hundred years before mine. There are terrifying moments in this book as well as exhilarating ones, and through it all, Jo lives out her imagined and created life in a way that made me both laugh and cheer out loud. Highly recommended for any ambitious woman and for any man who wants to understand women.
January 11, 2024
I took a course from this author and liked him so much, I vowed to read all of his books. This is his latest and it's essentially two stories revolving around the same independent woman who moves from the mountains to the big city of Asheville during the Depression. She gets a job at a bank and watches as it lends more than it takes in and has to close. Roberts said he wanted to show what it was like inside the bank during the bank failures. In the meantime, our narrator gets involved with a bootlegger and a speakeasy. The last part of the book is about their relationship and how speakeasies operated during Prohibition.
March 21, 2025
Since I grew up in Asheville and had never heard of the Sky Club this book appealed to me. I thought the characters and storyline were just so-so, but I was fascinated by this time period in Asheville's history. I had never considered so many of the buildings in downtown were frozen in time from ~1930s until the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was growing up there. The Sky Club itself wasn't terribly interesting to me, but it did seem to serve a "home" for the main character. While it was slow at times I did find value in reading this for the perspective.
April 19, 2025
The Sky Club was a restaurant and speak-easy just above Asheville during prohibition. Covering only 1929 - 1931, with more romance than history, Roberts emphasizes the bank failures in Nov. '30, 14 months after the stock market crash in New York. The rich people in Asheville had invested in real estate rather than stocks. As a retired CPA, I was delighted that the main character, Jo Salter, was a female accountant and the first to realize that her bank was in trouble. Roberts also points out that the mountain folk, with their farming and bootlegging, survived the Depression better than the city people.
December 20, 2025
“A cold bed makes for an empty house. Regardless of how big it is." Page 141
Like I said, you can only ignore the numbers for so long. And they don't always translate into words you want to hear. Page 177
"You would have been good for him. God knows."
"But would he have been good for me, sir?"
The good doctor smiled and shook his head before turning back to the elevator. Page 185
All my long, sweet life, when the inside of something has driven me crazy, I have stepped outside. Breathed the same free air as any bird. Page 202
Like I said, you can only ignore the numbers for so long. And they don't always translate into words you want to hear. Page 177
"You would have been good for him. God knows."
"But would he have been good for me, sir?"
The good doctor smiled and shook his head before turning back to the elevator. Page 185
All my long, sweet life, when the inside of something has driven me crazy, I have stepped outside. Breathed the same free air as any bird. Page 202
January 15, 2025
I've enjoyed every Terry Roberts book I have read, and this one is no exception. As someone who grew up in WNC, I always appreciate a writer who understands the area and writes sensitively and realistically. Roberts continues to do so and his descriptive language is beautiful, as well. Familiar names and places add a sense of belonging for me, but may also resonate with anyone from other parts of the South and Appalachia in particular.
September 2, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. I found Jo Salter and Levi Arrowood very likeable and interesting characters. This book is based on an actual club in the Ashville area; as well as dealing with the crash of the bank in Ashville. The time line in this book is straight through. However, chapter 35 is Part three – Winter 1931, and, chapter 52 is Part four – Summer 1931. Someone should have caught this.
March 5, 2023
I loved this book. The characters were so well developed and the setting being where I live made it especially interesting. I was sad when it ended and I missed my “friends” for several days after. The details of Jo and her coming of age were so well written. I also had the chance to meet Terry and it was such a fun discussion with him and his lovely wife!
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