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Cataloochee
“A brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America.”
–Charles Frazier
Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post—Civil War saga of three generations of families–their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.
Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when “where you was born was where God wanted you,” the Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune.
Never one to pass on opportunity, Ezra Banks, an ambitious young man seeking some land of his own, arrives in Cataloochee in the 1880s. His first order of business is to marry a Carter girl, Hannah, the daughter of the valley’s largest landowner. From there Ezra’s brood grows, as do those of the Carters and the Wrights. With hard work and determination, the burgeouning community transforms wilderness into home, to be passed on through generations.
But the idyll is not to last, nor to be inherited: The government takes steps to relocate folks to make room for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and tragedy will touch one of the clans in a single, unimaginable act.
Wayne Caldwell brings to life the community’s historic struggles and close kinships over a span of six decades. Full of humor, darkness, beauty, and wisdom, Cataloochee is a classic novel of place and family.
From the Hardcover edition.
–Charles Frazier
Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post—Civil War saga of three generations of families–their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.
Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when “where you was born was where God wanted you,” the Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune.
Never one to pass on opportunity, Ezra Banks, an ambitious young man seeking some land of his own, arrives in Cataloochee in the 1880s. His first order of business is to marry a Carter girl, Hannah, the daughter of the valley’s largest landowner. From there Ezra’s brood grows, as do those of the Carters and the Wrights. With hard work and determination, the burgeouning community transforms wilderness into home, to be passed on through generations.
But the idyll is not to last, nor to be inherited: The government takes steps to relocate folks to make room for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and tragedy will touch one of the clans in a single, unimaginable act.
Wayne Caldwell brings to life the community’s historic struggles and close kinships over a span of six decades. Full of humor, darkness, beauty, and wisdom, Cataloochee is a classic novel of place and family.
From the Hardcover edition.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
152 people are currently reading
2663 people want to read
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September 3, 2022
“Seems a man’s always just a cat hair away from dying around here, whether it’s a tree falling on him or snakebite or his horse spooking and throwing him off and busting his head open. Or the old devil getting him drunk and making him crazy, like when Uncle Lige Howell got tiddly, remember? He thought that old she-bear was an Indian and tried to run her off with a hoe. This place is pretty, and I love it, but by God it can be deadly.
The people who settled in the communities of the Cataloochee Valley of North Carolina were mostly industrious and independent. Many were drawn to the area because of its great beauty or wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of life in town. Many didn’t care to have neighbors within hollering distance. They made their living from the soil, growing most of what was needed. Eventually, there was logging, then there were the trains. As the area began to be stripped of its natural resources, there was a call for a national park. This is a story about the people who called the Cataloochee Valley home in the time before it became part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Wayne Caldwell renders his characters with skill. They are salt of the earth country people and the dialog rings true. Caldwell was born and educated in NC. My guess is that he grew up around some old-timers and absorbed some of the language. So did I. It’s been ages since I’ve heard the word, ‘quare,’ but my grandmother used it often to describe people who weren’t, in her opinion, quite right in the head. There is a rhythm and quality to country speak that aligns it with poetry. They might not use the word metaphor but their daily language was peppered with startling and eloquent comparisons. As well as in the dialog, Caldwell intersperses these lively metaphors throughout the narrative providing entertainment, and for me, a sense of nostalgia.
Here are some examples:
“Ezra Banks, bring that young’un back before he pops a mainspring,...”
“The trunk was four feet in diameter and rose fifty feet before there was a limb. Then it bifurcated, looking like a Pentecostal preacher straining an altar call among perfect heathens.”
“Just wish Callie’d let me keep liquor in the house. I asked her once if she’d let me, just in case of snakes, but she stubbed up like an old heifer.”
One of the characters, Ezra Banks, is a bona fide villain and mean as a striped rattlesnake when he drinks. Callie Sutton thinks the devil has gotten into about everything, and Granny Lib decided in her early sixties after her husband dies that she won’t strike a lick to work anymore. Many of the characters are part of the Carter family or married into it. Caldwell provides a family tree at the beginning of the book so you can keep them straight.
An enjoyable read that made me want to visit the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and hike through the Cataloochee Valley, remembering these people as well as the Cherokee who lived there first.
We used up or destroyed much of our natural heritage just because that heritage was so bountiful. We slashed our forests, we used our soils, we encouraged floods, we overconcentrated our wealth, we disregarded our unemployed—all of this so greatly that we were brought rather suddenly to face the fact that unless we gave thought to the lives of our children and grandchildren, they would no longer be able to live and to improve upon our American way of life. The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mountains, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic—have always blown on free men. We are free today. If we join together now— men and women and children -to face the common menace as a united people, we shall be free tomorrow.
So, to the free people of America, I dedicate this Park.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his speech at the dedication of the park on September 2, 1940.
The people who settled in the communities of the Cataloochee Valley of North Carolina were mostly industrious and independent. Many were drawn to the area because of its great beauty or wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of life in town. Many didn’t care to have neighbors within hollering distance. They made their living from the soil, growing most of what was needed. Eventually, there was logging, then there were the trains. As the area began to be stripped of its natural resources, there was a call for a national park. This is a story about the people who called the Cataloochee Valley home in the time before it became part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Wayne Caldwell renders his characters with skill. They are salt of the earth country people and the dialog rings true. Caldwell was born and educated in NC. My guess is that he grew up around some old-timers and absorbed some of the language. So did I. It’s been ages since I’ve heard the word, ‘quare,’ but my grandmother used it often to describe people who weren’t, in her opinion, quite right in the head. There is a rhythm and quality to country speak that aligns it with poetry. They might not use the word metaphor but their daily language was peppered with startling and eloquent comparisons. As well as in the dialog, Caldwell intersperses these lively metaphors throughout the narrative providing entertainment, and for me, a sense of nostalgia.
Here are some examples:
“Ezra Banks, bring that young’un back before he pops a mainspring,...”
“The trunk was four feet in diameter and rose fifty feet before there was a limb. Then it bifurcated, looking like a Pentecostal preacher straining an altar call among perfect heathens.”
“Just wish Callie’d let me keep liquor in the house. I asked her once if she’d let me, just in case of snakes, but she stubbed up like an old heifer.”
One of the characters, Ezra Banks, is a bona fide villain and mean as a striped rattlesnake when he drinks. Callie Sutton thinks the devil has gotten into about everything, and Granny Lib decided in her early sixties after her husband dies that she won’t strike a lick to work anymore. Many of the characters are part of the Carter family or married into it. Caldwell provides a family tree at the beginning of the book so you can keep them straight.
An enjoyable read that made me want to visit the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and hike through the Cataloochee Valley, remembering these people as well as the Cherokee who lived there first.
We used up or destroyed much of our natural heritage just because that heritage was so bountiful. We slashed our forests, we used our soils, we encouraged floods, we overconcentrated our wealth, we disregarded our unemployed—all of this so greatly that we were brought rather suddenly to face the fact that unless we gave thought to the lives of our children and grandchildren, they would no longer be able to live and to improve upon our American way of life. The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mountains, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic—have always blown on free men. We are free today. If we join together now— men and women and children -to face the common menace as a united people, we shall be free tomorrow.
So, to the free people of America, I dedicate this Park.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his speech at the dedication of the park on September 2, 1940.
February 1, 2022
...a sky the color of a bad bruise the day it begins to heal. Can you picture it? Boy howdy, I can see it plain as day. It's a beautiful land, but it can be deadly in a multitude of ways. North Carolina mountain country, and the families that inhabit an area there as the Civil War ends and life slowly picks back up. Pull up to the supper table and dig into all manner of good eatin' - from cat-head biscuits to dilly beans, along with ham and a mess of beans, and the requisite cornbread. Rest your weary bones on a mattress stuffed with dry corn husks. You will be up before dawn ready to tend to the livestock, hitch up the mule for plowing, and doing it all over again.
Although I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks and have never been to NC, the vernacular used here was just as familiar and comfortable to me as an old shoe. If this time period interests you at all, do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of this. I am genuinely sorry to have it end, and yes-siree-bob, it gets all the stars.
Although I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks and have never been to NC, the vernacular used here was just as familiar and comfortable to me as an old shoe. If this time period interests you at all, do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of this. I am genuinely sorry to have it end, and yes-siree-bob, it gets all the stars.
January 14, 2022
I bet you thought Cataloochee was a word that the author made-up. I certainly did. Nope, we’re wrong. It is a valley, actually two valleys, Big and Little Cataloochee, situated in that portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that is located in North Carolina.
Cataloochee was originally a Cherokee hunting ground. According to Wikipedia, “the name ‘Cataloochee’ is derived from the Cherokee term 'Gadalutsi,' which means ‘fringe standing erect.’” And that “the name probably referred to the tall rows of trees along the ridges surrounding the valley.” Well, maybe.
Not only is Cataloochee a real place, but some of the many, many characters in Caldwell’s novel are based on real people and the plot is derived from the valley’s historical record, essentially from the Civil War to 1928. Caldwell takes those people and their past and weaves a tapestry, and in the process, as an anonymous Kirkus reviewer pointed out, provides “his characters plenty of room to amble and grow, and they [become] the kind of people the reader misses when the last page is turned.”
I’ll buy that, with one exception. There is one character that I will remember, but I won’t miss him, even though he is the central character, if there is one, and since the plot required at least one rotten apple in the barrel to make the story interesting, Ezra Banks filled that need.
He was mean and ornery, a conniving manipulator, who was arrogant and overbearing, and that was when he was sober and on his best behavior.
“Let’s put it this way, Banks. Somebody told me there wasn’t but two sons of bitches in Cataloochee. If that’s so, you’re both of them.”
“Hope ain’t nobody hurt,” he prayed, “but if somebody got shot, Lord, let it be Ezra. And, Lord Jesus, if it is Ezra, let him be killed dead. A bedridden Ezra Banks would be cause for the whole of Little Cataloochee to up and move.”
Ezra epitomized the old adage that a friend of mine once quoted to me about his father. He said “his father knew the price of everything; but the value of nothing.”
Thank goodness Ezra was the exception. For the most part, Caldwell’s other characters are hard-working, kindly, salt of the earth, folks. Even those who liked the moonshine tended to be good drunks, as opposed to Ezra, who was a mean one.
“During fifty years of living with Will Carter, Kate kept the house just so, and Will didn’t trouble her. Kate made wine, starting with dandelion and rhubarb in spring, then strawberry, elderberry, blackberry and finally Concord grape as the season advanced. Will drank no wine, said it made his head ache. He kept corn whiskey and apple brandy in the barn, and Kate didn’t trouble him. Kate said she’d just as soon drink coal oil as whiskey. They had a good marriage.
This multi-generational epic features a huge assortment of characters. Fortunately, the front of the book includes a family tree that is helpful in keeping them straight – especially as they are introduced in the early chapters. However, if it were diagrammed as an actual tree, I’m not sure there would have been a whole heck of a lot of branches.
A couple of things that I most admire about the book is Caldwell’s wry sense of humor and his grasp of the vernacular of the place and the times. He knows when to use both and when not to; in other words, well-done, but not overdone. There are a lot of examples of his usage of vernacular, but my favorite was a word I had not heard since I heard my great-grandmother say it when I was a small child. She was in the garden gathering little bitty tomatoes and I asked her what they were and she said they were “tommy-toes.”
Cataloochee was originally a Cherokee hunting ground. According to Wikipedia, “the name ‘Cataloochee’ is derived from the Cherokee term 'Gadalutsi,' which means ‘fringe standing erect.’” And that “the name probably referred to the tall rows of trees along the ridges surrounding the valley.” Well, maybe.
Not only is Cataloochee a real place, but some of the many, many characters in Caldwell’s novel are based on real people and the plot is derived from the valley’s historical record, essentially from the Civil War to 1928. Caldwell takes those people and their past and weaves a tapestry, and in the process, as an anonymous Kirkus reviewer pointed out, provides “his characters plenty of room to amble and grow, and they [become] the kind of people the reader misses when the last page is turned.”
I’ll buy that, with one exception. There is one character that I will remember, but I won’t miss him, even though he is the central character, if there is one, and since the plot required at least one rotten apple in the barrel to make the story interesting, Ezra Banks filled that need.
He was mean and ornery, a conniving manipulator, who was arrogant and overbearing, and that was when he was sober and on his best behavior.
“Let’s put it this way, Banks. Somebody told me there wasn’t but two sons of bitches in Cataloochee. If that’s so, you’re both of them.”
“Hope ain’t nobody hurt,” he prayed, “but if somebody got shot, Lord, let it be Ezra. And, Lord Jesus, if it is Ezra, let him be killed dead. A bedridden Ezra Banks would be cause for the whole of Little Cataloochee to up and move.”
Ezra epitomized the old adage that a friend of mine once quoted to me about his father. He said “his father knew the price of everything; but the value of nothing.”
Thank goodness Ezra was the exception. For the most part, Caldwell’s other characters are hard-working, kindly, salt of the earth, folks. Even those who liked the moonshine tended to be good drunks, as opposed to Ezra, who was a mean one.
“During fifty years of living with Will Carter, Kate kept the house just so, and Will didn’t trouble her. Kate made wine, starting with dandelion and rhubarb in spring, then strawberry, elderberry, blackberry and finally Concord grape as the season advanced. Will drank no wine, said it made his head ache. He kept corn whiskey and apple brandy in the barn, and Kate didn’t trouble him. Kate said she’d just as soon drink coal oil as whiskey. They had a good marriage.
This multi-generational epic features a huge assortment of characters. Fortunately, the front of the book includes a family tree that is helpful in keeping them straight – especially as they are introduced in the early chapters. However, if it were diagrammed as an actual tree, I’m not sure there would have been a whole heck of a lot of branches.
A couple of things that I most admire about the book is Caldwell’s wry sense of humor and his grasp of the vernacular of the place and the times. He knows when to use both and when not to; in other words, well-done, but not overdone. There are a lot of examples of his usage of vernacular, but my favorite was a word I had not heard since I heard my great-grandmother say it when I was a small child. She was in the garden gathering little bitty tomatoes and I asked her what they were and she said they were “tommy-toes.”
January 5, 2022
My first book of 2022 comes in at a great big 5 stars! And I have a new literary crush on author Wayne Caldwell. My other author crushes are southern Appalachian writers as well, so he fits in nicely.
Simply put, Cataloochee is the story of a people and a way of life in the North Carolina mountains from 1864 til 1928, when the federal government bought up the entire community for the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smoky Mountain National Park. My father was raised in Boone and I spent a lot of time there as a child, so I can attest to the language and the character of those mountain people. Independent and self sufficient doesn't even begin to describe it. Daddy used to tell us about "revenuers" that ventured into those backwoods places looking for stills. They went in and never came out. Caldwell added a chapter on that very scenario.
The characters in this book are treasures, and while I was kept busy in the first few chapters paging back to the family tree in the front, I soon came to know them all like family. Good, bad, and one truly despicable man joined the hardworking, long suffering women who built families and farms over four generations, only to lose them to "the greater good" of the Park Service who wanted a place for vacationing Americans to experience a true wilderness. Next time you find yourself in any national park, give a thought to the people who might have been there first.
Many thanks to Sara for choosing this as her MOD choice for On the Southern Literary Trail. It was a wonderful book that I've had my eye on for some time, and goes back to my shelf to be reread in the future.
Simply put, Cataloochee is the story of a people and a way of life in the North Carolina mountains from 1864 til 1928, when the federal government bought up the entire community for the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smoky Mountain National Park. My father was raised in Boone and I spent a lot of time there as a child, so I can attest to the language and the character of those mountain people. Independent and self sufficient doesn't even begin to describe it. Daddy used to tell us about "revenuers" that ventured into those backwoods places looking for stills. They went in and never came out. Caldwell added a chapter on that very scenario.
The characters in this book are treasures, and while I was kept busy in the first few chapters paging back to the family tree in the front, I soon came to know them all like family. Good, bad, and one truly despicable man joined the hardworking, long suffering women who built families and farms over four generations, only to lose them to "the greater good" of the Park Service who wanted a place for vacationing Americans to experience a true wilderness. Next time you find yourself in any national park, give a thought to the people who might have been there first.
Many thanks to Sara for choosing this as her MOD choice for On the Southern Literary Trail. It was a wonderful book that I've had my eye on for some time, and goes back to my shelf to be reread in the future.
January 1, 2022
4.5 - I love to visit the Smokies - stars.
Wayne Caldwell’s debut novel, Cataloochee, is an ambitious enterprise, for he seeks to tell not just the story of multi-generations of a family, but the tale of an isolated region of the North Carolina Appalachians, how it was settled and all its inhabitants, as well. The mountains of Cataloochee are as much a character in this novel as the ignoble Ezra Banks or any of the many families that are chronicled between its pages.
That Caldwell pulls off this epic tale so well is little short of a miracle, since it involves the introduction of enough characters to need a family tree to keep track of them, stories within the stories to bring each individual to life, and an almost meandering plotline. Still, it somehow hangs together so beautifully that you never feel any part of that until you have closed the book and are reflecting on its contents.
The character that glues all the stories together is Ezra Banks, who comes to the area at the age of 16, while fighting for the Confederacy at the end of the Civil War, and recognizes it as his own idea of paradise. He returns there when he is able to buy land, marries into the Carter family, well-established landowners and apple farmers, and begins a saga that is laced with foreboding from the beginning. Ezra is a difficult man, and a complex character. I hated him mostly, but there was a part of me that gave him grudging credit for the life he created through hard work and tenacity.
I am so impressed with Wayne Caldwell’s skill as a writer; he paints a picture with his prose that is soft and lyrical, but also hard and concrete. That he understands this region and its people is evident from word one. One of the issues he addresses is the coming of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the upheaval that represented for those who lived in these mountains. I have been to this paradise many times, and while I felt and mourned the loss this represented to its inhabitants, I was eternally grateful that it was preserved and is there for ordinary people like me to see and share just a little.
While reading, I was constantly reminded of one of my very favorite writers, Wendell Berry. Caldwell has his own style, which is very different from Berry’s, but he takes the best of Berry’s rural tradition and incorporates it into his own fiction, flawlessly. Caldwell acknowledges this influence openly, and it makes me happy to feel that Berry’s vision is being passed on in Southern Literature and will not be lost to us when he is gone.
Caldwell should be quite proud to have written a novel that is a sweeping saga with an extremely intimate feel. Some of the events might seem mundane or ordinary, like Hannah’s purchase of a Burdick sewing machine, but they are the moments in the book that made me feel attached to these people and ready to celebrate or mourn with them. There is no condescension, no caricature, and no belittling of the people or their way of life, even when those negative traits emerge, which are too often portrayed as defining mountain people.
In short (I know, you are saying “too late for that”), but, in short, it is a great piece of literature, don’t miss it.
Wayne Caldwell’s debut novel, Cataloochee, is an ambitious enterprise, for he seeks to tell not just the story of multi-generations of a family, but the tale of an isolated region of the North Carolina Appalachians, how it was settled and all its inhabitants, as well. The mountains of Cataloochee are as much a character in this novel as the ignoble Ezra Banks or any of the many families that are chronicled between its pages.
That Caldwell pulls off this epic tale so well is little short of a miracle, since it involves the introduction of enough characters to need a family tree to keep track of them, stories within the stories to bring each individual to life, and an almost meandering plotline. Still, it somehow hangs together so beautifully that you never feel any part of that until you have closed the book and are reflecting on its contents.
The character that glues all the stories together is Ezra Banks, who comes to the area at the age of 16, while fighting for the Confederacy at the end of the Civil War, and recognizes it as his own idea of paradise. He returns there when he is able to buy land, marries into the Carter family, well-established landowners and apple farmers, and begins a saga that is laced with foreboding from the beginning. Ezra is a difficult man, and a complex character. I hated him mostly, but there was a part of me that gave him grudging credit for the life he created through hard work and tenacity.
I am so impressed with Wayne Caldwell’s skill as a writer; he paints a picture with his prose that is soft and lyrical, but also hard and concrete. That he understands this region and its people is evident from word one. One of the issues he addresses is the coming of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the upheaval that represented for those who lived in these mountains. I have been to this paradise many times, and while I felt and mourned the loss this represented to its inhabitants, I was eternally grateful that it was preserved and is there for ordinary people like me to see and share just a little.
While reading, I was constantly reminded of one of my very favorite writers, Wendell Berry. Caldwell has his own style, which is very different from Berry’s, but he takes the best of Berry’s rural tradition and incorporates it into his own fiction, flawlessly. Caldwell acknowledges this influence openly, and it makes me happy to feel that Berry’s vision is being passed on in Southern Literature and will not be lost to us when he is gone.
Caldwell should be quite proud to have written a novel that is a sweeping saga with an extremely intimate feel. Some of the events might seem mundane or ordinary, like Hannah’s purchase of a Burdick sewing machine, but they are the moments in the book that made me feel attached to these people and ready to celebrate or mourn with them. There is no condescension, no caricature, and no belittling of the people or their way of life, even when those negative traits emerge, which are too often portrayed as defining mountain people.
In short (I know, you are saying “too late for that”), but, in short, it is a great piece of literature, don’t miss it.
January 6, 2022
4.5 stars -
Well, it seems as though the Southern Literary Trail has stumbled upon a gem of Appalachian writing this month as we voraciously read Wayne Caldwell’s Cataloochee. This book has been around since 2007 but I am glad that we have now discovered this epic saga taking place in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in a place called Cataloochee. It is a husky read, but not too long, only 349 pages, covering a span of 60 years with a substantial amount of characters to keep track of but Caldwell has filled its pages with the stuff of Appalachia that we lovers of southern literature enjoy so much. The vernacular is perfectly done. It is not contrived in any way that would make the characters appear like the many negative stereotypes southern people suffer from in print and on screen making them come across as dumb and uneducated. Caldwell’s portrayal of an isolated community living among these mountains imparts a day-to-day life of people who marry, have children and learn to parent, tend their crops, mourn their dead, go to church, help each other, and contend with the loss of their land. It is their way of life that becomes the heart of this story from generation to generation. Complex but full of a wonderful mountain heritage.
One of my favorite scenes is when Hannah Banks determines to get herself a sewing machine from the Sears catalog, outsmarting her meaner than a snake husband, Ezra into approving of the purchase. Now, Caldwell is light on the southern gothic but does give the reader a very small taste of it but nothing in the veins of Faulkner here. It’s just impossible to write a story of Appalachia without any guns and whiskey, illegal or otherwise, and that sometimes draws out the curiosity of some very unfortunate revenue men. But that’s all part of the way of life here.
Caldwell also sheds light on the methods used by the Federal government in its creation of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and how it negatively affected the folks that had lived here for generations. Facing the idea of having to be displaced like the Israelites, the folks of Cataloochee had to determine their futures and decide whether they would go or stay. They would be compensated if they gave up their inheritance but if they stayed until they died, the land they intended for the future generations would be lost to them forever.
Well, it seems as though the Southern Literary Trail has stumbled upon a gem of Appalachian writing this month as we voraciously read Wayne Caldwell’s Cataloochee. This book has been around since 2007 but I am glad that we have now discovered this epic saga taking place in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in a place called Cataloochee. It is a husky read, but not too long, only 349 pages, covering a span of 60 years with a substantial amount of characters to keep track of but Caldwell has filled its pages with the stuff of Appalachia that we lovers of southern literature enjoy so much. The vernacular is perfectly done. It is not contrived in any way that would make the characters appear like the many negative stereotypes southern people suffer from in print and on screen making them come across as dumb and uneducated. Caldwell’s portrayal of an isolated community living among these mountains imparts a day-to-day life of people who marry, have children and learn to parent, tend their crops, mourn their dead, go to church, help each other, and contend with the loss of their land. It is their way of life that becomes the heart of this story from generation to generation. Complex but full of a wonderful mountain heritage.
One of my favorite scenes is when Hannah Banks determines to get herself a sewing machine from the Sears catalog, outsmarting her meaner than a snake husband, Ezra into approving of the purchase. Now, Caldwell is light on the southern gothic but does give the reader a very small taste of it but nothing in the veins of Faulkner here. It’s just impossible to write a story of Appalachia without any guns and whiskey, illegal or otherwise, and that sometimes draws out the curiosity of some very unfortunate revenue men. But that’s all part of the way of life here.
Caldwell also sheds light on the methods used by the Federal government in its creation of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and how it negatively affected the folks that had lived here for generations. Facing the idea of having to be displaced like the Israelites, the folks of Cataloochee had to determine their futures and decide whether they would go or stay. They would be compensated if they gave up their inheritance but if they stayed until they died, the land they intended for the future generations would be lost to them forever.
April 6, 2022
4.5
What a time I had with these characters in this novel!
Several generations of a few families in Chataloochie in the Great Smoky Mountains.. beginning in 1830.
This novel follows these characters (the good, the bad, the ugly) until 1930, a time when the United Stated government wanted to buy this land for a national park.
Most of the characters, were salt of the earth type people, one of them especially was downright evil.. they were all living in this Eden type land.
Thoroughly enjoyed this writing!
Thank you to Diane Barnes for her review… I was enticed to read this.. so good!
What a time I had with these characters in this novel!
Several generations of a few families in Chataloochie in the Great Smoky Mountains.. beginning in 1830.
This novel follows these characters (the good, the bad, the ugly) until 1930, a time when the United Stated government wanted to buy this land for a national park.
Most of the characters, were salt of the earth type people, one of them especially was downright evil.. they were all living in this Eden type land.
Thoroughly enjoyed this writing!
Thank you to Diane Barnes for her review… I was enticed to read this.. so good!
November 21, 2025
This is quite possibly my shortest ever review:
It was Perfect- enough said ☺️
It was Perfect- enough said ☺️
June 30, 2011
How many times as a kid did I ride from Lexington, KY on a Friday night with my family down I-75 to the misty and dangerous JELLICO MOUNTAIN as the sun set to our right, then hang a sharp left at Knoxville and slide in Gatlinburg in all its cheesy, wondrous mountain glory? A million or more, it seems, and I still revel in bi-yearly treks to the strip (where I could eat myself silly at the Pancake Pantry). We usually stay in a cabin just out of town and sit in the hot tub sipping daiquiris and loving the stars above us before we set out early on Saturday for a day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some of my earliest and fondest memories of family vacation are of stopping at the Sugarlands Visitor’s Center for maps (to places we’ve been a hundred times) and standing there in the October morning sun watching a mule turn a cane press to make sorghum molasses at Cades Cove. The grist mill there captured my heart early; as a mechanic’s daughter, I romanticized machines and anyone who worked with them like millers and blacksmiths. And I was a bread loving little fool and knew the freshly ground meal from Cades Cove made the very best fried cornbread. Fall mornings spent walking the creek with my dad as he taught me about each little geologic oddity we saw and late afternoons gorging on fudge and outlet shopping with my mom and grandmother are my Gatlinburg memories. That and go-carts with my cousin Pam, the woman I still think of as my sister.
But I never thought much about that land as ever having belonged to anyone; it was America’s park, all of ours, for as long as I could remember. My parents honeymooned there at the edge of the park in a place called The Fabulous Chalet (without a drag queen in sight). But that land was farm land at one time, and the people who lived there just didn’t abandon it. They mourned its loss with tears and sweat and blood.
Caldwell’s book encompasses a huge swath of time from the Civil War through to the Depression years. He takes us into the cabins of the settlers of Cataloochee Valley in what would become the North Carolina part of the park. I read Ron Rash’s book Serena not long ago, also about the encroaching park, but his book covered a particularlyblood-thirsty married couple who logged the land to death. Caldwell’s book relies less on scandal and sex and more on the mountain life I’ve written of before; the food (corn pone and brown beans, pot likker), the vernacular (“she quit him”), and the customs all rang true to my own family’s mountain heritage. Caldwell has an adept ear for the dialect and a gentle way of dealing with people who to outsiders might appear quaint. He does a wonderful job exploring the complexities of family life, love, and even parenting through complicated characters I will miss now that I’m done with the book. As the book closes, the men and women we’ve come to love so well through his story are facing the imminent demise of their farms as the park authorities move in; it is nothing less than horrifying to picturethe farmers who’ve toiled the land of their fathers as they stare at their hands in horror–it’s all just going to be taken away.
I love the park. It is America’s best idea, as Ken Burns tells us. But I think it is so important to not gloss over how we got it, how we got all of them, and to question our love of something that may not be ours to love. Caldwell has done it well here, and I look forward to reading the sequel, Requiem By Fire, soon.
But I never thought much about that land as ever having belonged to anyone; it was America’s park, all of ours, for as long as I could remember. My parents honeymooned there at the edge of the park in a place called The Fabulous Chalet (without a drag queen in sight). But that land was farm land at one time, and the people who lived there just didn’t abandon it. They mourned its loss with tears and sweat and blood.
Caldwell’s book encompasses a huge swath of time from the Civil War through to the Depression years. He takes us into the cabins of the settlers of Cataloochee Valley in what would become the North Carolina part of the park. I read Ron Rash’s book Serena not long ago, also about the encroaching park, but his book covered a particularlyblood-thirsty married couple who logged the land to death. Caldwell’s book relies less on scandal and sex and more on the mountain life I’ve written of before; the food (corn pone and brown beans, pot likker), the vernacular (“she quit him”), and the customs all rang true to my own family’s mountain heritage. Caldwell has an adept ear for the dialect and a gentle way of dealing with people who to outsiders might appear quaint. He does a wonderful job exploring the complexities of family life, love, and even parenting through complicated characters I will miss now that I’m done with the book. As the book closes, the men and women we’ve come to love so well through his story are facing the imminent demise of their farms as the park authorities move in; it is nothing less than horrifying to picturethe farmers who’ve toiled the land of their fathers as they stare at their hands in horror–it’s all just going to be taken away.
I love the park. It is America’s best idea, as Ken Burns tells us. But I think it is so important to not gloss over how we got it, how we got all of them, and to question our love of something that may not be ours to love. Caldwell has done it well here, and I look forward to reading the sequel, Requiem By Fire, soon.
July 18, 2022
4.5 stars for a highly enjoyable family saga, which I won’t summarize here, but which kept me entertained throughout. Memorable characters, both good and bad, some action and the local flavor of speech and descriptions kept me smiling frequently with original turns of phrase. I listened to the Audible version, which probably wasn’t the ideal choice for keeping track of characters, but is was beautifully narrated and acted by Scott Sowers. Kudos to the author, Wayne Caldwell, and also to Sowers for the performance!
January 5, 2022
4.5 🏞 🏞 🏞 🏞
January 13, 2022
Caldwell knows the people and the place. He has crafted Appalachian people and their stories into one book set in one specific area in the mountains of NC. He pulls you in from page one and doesn’t let you go. You truly become invested in the lives of each of his characters, Most you wish you knew longer. Many of the characters Caldwell introduces to you at a young age and carries them to death or to a ripe old age. I would tend to think as a reader, Caldwell values family, nature, community, marriage, and the importance of women.
January 12, 2022
4+ stars for this story of a people and a place: the Cataloochans of Haywood County, North Carolina, just outside Asheville, beginning in 1864 when 14-year-old Ezra Banks leaves home after his drunkard father breaks his nose with a hammer and continuing through 1928 with the inception of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
People in these parts have their own way of speaking, an almost foreign dialect for many of us with words like “quare“ (queer), “rurint” (ruined), “drownded” (drowned), “winder” (window), “sewercide” (suicide), and “burnsides” (sideburns) and with phrases equally memorable: “lower’n a snake’s belly,” “he could see a flea on a gnat’s ass,” “happy is the corpse the rain falls on,” and my favorite . . . “heading upcreek at low tide with a spoon for a paddle.” And author Wayne Caldwell knows it wouldn’t be an authentic sense of place without cathead biscuits, whiskey, snakes, and mules, specifically a dead mule. For any fan of Southern/Appalachian literature, this book has it all - the good, the bad, and the “dad-gum” ugly. I loved the way Caldwell brought this story full circle through Ezra, the proverbial apple who didn’t fall too far from the tree after all.
“Hope ain’t nobody hurt,” he prayed, “but if somebody got shot, Lord, let it be Ezra. And, Lord Jesus, if it is Ezra, let him be killed dead.” ~ John Jacob “Jake” Carter
People in these parts have their own way of speaking, an almost foreign dialect for many of us with words like “quare“ (queer), “rurint” (ruined), “drownded” (drowned), “winder” (window), “sewercide” (suicide), and “burnsides” (sideburns) and with phrases equally memorable: “lower’n a snake’s belly,” “he could see a flea on a gnat’s ass,” “happy is the corpse the rain falls on,” and my favorite . . . “heading upcreek at low tide with a spoon for a paddle.” And author Wayne Caldwell knows it wouldn’t be an authentic sense of place without cathead biscuits, whiskey, snakes, and mules, specifically a dead mule. For any fan of Southern/Appalachian literature, this book has it all - the good, the bad, and the “dad-gum” ugly. I loved the way Caldwell brought this story full circle through Ezra, the proverbial apple who didn’t fall too far from the tree after all.
“Hope ain’t nobody hurt,” he prayed, “but if somebody got shot, Lord, let it be Ezra. And, Lord Jesus, if it is Ezra, let him be killed dead.” ~ John Jacob “Jake” Carter
February 24, 2008
I'm always interested in seeing how the Blue Ridge/Smokey Mountain area is depicted in novels. I felt Cataloochee was pretty faithful to the spirit, attitudes and lives of the people who lived in that area. The period covered is much too ambitious for a book this size, and it suffers because of that. I believe Mr. Caldwell would have done better to make this a 2-3 book series since he covered over 100 years. Many times it felt like we were on fast forward through people's lives, until he got to his real story...the story of what happened when the government decided to create the Blue Ridge Parkway. Obvioiusly knowing how tied the people were to the land meant everything in creating empathy with readers for their plight; however, I felt the story was rushed in many ways. As someone who heard many stories about that whole "travesty" while I was growing up, and what became of those people, it would have been nice to see it built more slowly and then carried forward to its conclusion. Still it's a worthwhile read.
March 12, 2024
When I first read Wayne Caldwell’s poems in Woodsmoke, I knew I had encountered a very special writer and I resolved to seek out this, his first novel. Despite being a Canadian, I’ve several times had the privilege of visiting Asheville and the surrounding Smoky Mountain country and encountering the sort of people who still live there. I can attest that much of what has been said of those folks — their civility, their hospitality, their deep connection to that landscape — remains true to this day. Of course, the community of Cataloochee and its farmsteads, laboriously carved out of those mountain vales are long gone; and the way of life they represented in but a fond memory, to be vaguely elicited in local museum exhibits and tourist displays within what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Only the creek, the mountains, the flora and fauna remain.
All nostalgia aside, it seems certain that even if the federal government had not forced those good folks off their beloved land, today’s economic realities would have done so anyway; but that doesn’t diminish their loss. An entire mountaineer way of life has vanished. Nowadays, the descendants of people like the Carters and the Wrights are probably building BMWs in Spartanburg or creating textiles in any of the dozens of nearby mills.
I found it impossible not to fall in love with these people and deeply regret the passing of their particular reality. This book still appeals greatly today, if only as an exercise in nostalgia, but it’s also a great deal more than that. There are really two stories here: the story of that very special time and place and the story of Ezra Banks, one deeply troubled and troublesome man and the grief he brought upon the neighbors afflicted by his presence and his demons. Wayne Caldwell is an even handed writer; he did not conjure up a pristine paradise. The reality is that few of those fields were close to being level, rich or fertile and prosperity was never likely to find its way there. When severe weather struck, the vulnerability of their livelihood soon became apparent. This was also a community whose values and traditions were bound to come into conflict with a government attuned to a very different way of life, one that would not be patient with a community that wished only to be left alone to live in its own way.
I’ll quote only one passage, where Hiram Carter and his family are gathered for their noonday meal:
The table, which old Levi had made years before from a chestnut log, held dishes of ham hocks in their own juice, pintos, a pone of corn bread, a bowl of applesauce, and another of kraut. They sat at the table, held hands, and bowed their heads, eyes not quite closed, “we’ve made it to dinner again, for which we thank you. Now bless these pretty hands that cooked this fine dinner. Amen.”
That passage probably tells us everything we need to know about these people.
All nostalgia aside, it seems certain that even if the federal government had not forced those good folks off their beloved land, today’s economic realities would have done so anyway; but that doesn’t diminish their loss. An entire mountaineer way of life has vanished. Nowadays, the descendants of people like the Carters and the Wrights are probably building BMWs in Spartanburg or creating textiles in any of the dozens of nearby mills.
I found it impossible not to fall in love with these people and deeply regret the passing of their particular reality. This book still appeals greatly today, if only as an exercise in nostalgia, but it’s also a great deal more than that. There are really two stories here: the story of that very special time and place and the story of Ezra Banks, one deeply troubled and troublesome man and the grief he brought upon the neighbors afflicted by his presence and his demons. Wayne Caldwell is an even handed writer; he did not conjure up a pristine paradise. The reality is that few of those fields were close to being level, rich or fertile and prosperity was never likely to find its way there. When severe weather struck, the vulnerability of their livelihood soon became apparent. This was also a community whose values and traditions were bound to come into conflict with a government attuned to a very different way of life, one that would not be patient with a community that wished only to be left alone to live in its own way.
I’ll quote only one passage, where Hiram Carter and his family are gathered for their noonday meal:
The table, which old Levi had made years before from a chestnut log, held dishes of ham hocks in their own juice, pintos, a pone of corn bread, a bowl of applesauce, and another of kraut. They sat at the table, held hands, and bowed their heads, eyes not quite closed, “we’ve made it to dinner again, for which we thank you. Now bless these pretty hands that cooked this fine dinner. Amen.”
That passage probably tells us everything we need to know about these people.
April 24, 2011
Once I made my peace with the fact that this is not a novel with a plot and an overarching story line, I began to enjoy it for what it is, a series of connected vignettes about a group of families living in the Cataloochee, an area of the North Carolina mountains near Asheville, between the 1850s and the early 1900s. Because there was no plot to pull me forward, I was often tempted to stop after a particularly full and satisfying story.
I’m glad I continued reading. This is living history. Cataloochee is not just a book of tiny tales. It is a “motion picture” detailing how people lived. Mr. Caldwell’s writing, when he is describing the people and their ways, is so compelling it really is like watching a documentary of the life and times. We see how the people talked, how they made their living, what they ate, the gender roles, how they got news of the outside, how they dealt with family problem, with strangers, with adversity and how they dealt with death. No history book or museum exhibit would be more effective in acquainting me with this settlement of people. Mr. Caldwell also shows the personal sacrifices that went into the making of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. A wonderful book.
I’m glad I continued reading. This is living history. Cataloochee is not just a book of tiny tales. It is a “motion picture” detailing how people lived. Mr. Caldwell’s writing, when he is describing the people and their ways, is so compelling it really is like watching a documentary of the life and times. We see how the people talked, how they made their living, what they ate, the gender roles, how they got news of the outside, how they dealt with family problem, with strangers, with adversity and how they dealt with death. No history book or museum exhibit would be more effective in acquainting me with this settlement of people. Mr. Caldwell also shows the personal sacrifices that went into the making of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. A wonderful book.
September 5, 2024
Cataloochee meanders into a story thread starting about 4 decades prior the War of Northern Aggression and continues up to the government's stunning decision to make Cataloochee part of the newly formed Smokey Mountain Park. One comes to very much care about the fate of the towns,people,and homesteads as the years pass and roots grow deep and entangled in the mountain community. The beauty and harshness of the wilderness explodes on the page in five senses..the lush woods,the scent of clear cold streams,soft wind tossing hair, the lyrical voices of the people.and everywhere the incredible place itself. It's so easy to step back a century and walk and watch and pray with the people as their story unspools.
March 3, 2022
This book is a fictional account of an actual North Carolina community that existed from the early 1800s until 1938 when the government purchased the last parcels needed to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It has a large cast of characters, requiring a genealogical chart to keep track of, which the author generously provided in the print edition. This made getting into the story a bit challenging at first but the author incorporated many excellent stories gleaned from a variety of sources into the book which soon had me totally enthralled.
I highly recommend this book. It breathes life back into one of America's many vanished communities.
My thanks to Sara, the late Mike Sullivan, aka Lawyer, and all of the other folks at the On the Southern Literary Trail group for giving me the opportunity to read and discuss this and many other fine books.
I highly recommend this book. It breathes life back into one of America's many vanished communities.
My thanks to Sara, the late Mike Sullivan, aka Lawyer, and all of the other folks at the On the Southern Literary Trail group for giving me the opportunity to read and discuss this and many other fine books.
August 20, 2022
I’m not quite sure how I missed this book and writer. It’s right up my alley. Thanks to the Southern Literary Trail for bringing it to my attention. This story is set in the mountains/valleys of Haywood Co., NC circa 1864-1928. The story is about a community of mountain people who live in an area called Cataloochee (Big & Little). I loved the writing, most of the characters and all of the stories. There are even a couple stories about mules, dead ones. As the book nears the finish the tale turns into a survival story. Tennessee and NC are buying up mountain forest land to establish a national park in the east, the Great Smoky Mt National Park. The people of Cataloochee may be forced off their land. Today Cataloochee is part of the park.
This is a book without a big plot. It is almost like a series of connected short stories. It is more about personalities, families and the daily life in the southern highlands. It’s not sentimental and there are some “rough” stories told. What impressed me most is how the people (though independent) come together to help one another when help is needed. Things like funerals. So much news ran through the churches, the small post office & store and word of mouth.
I think Caldwell caught the mountain dialect. It’s easier for me to hear than read. The mountain twang is slowly disappearing. As a kid I heard it all the time. I still love listening to older western Carolina women with what I hear as a hoarse, molasses voice. But it’s all slowly slipping away.
While reading this book I thought of Charles Frazier and Ron Rash (Cold Mountain and Serena). Frazier, Rash and Caldwell are all excellent storytellers who write meaningfully about the mountain south.
Sometimes I think we forget how desolate the Cataloochee area was just 150 yrs ago. It is wonderful that we have saved so many of the beautiful hardwood forests of the area. Although almost all of the chestnut trees died decades ago. However, the park can be a zoo at times. Too many cars and people. If you’re interested in visiting Cataloochee take exit #20 (Maggie Valley exit) off I-40 and immediately start working your way north. It’s not far. Western elk now roam the area. Very pretty in the Fall.
I’m looking forward to getting a copy of Caldwell’s Requiem by Fire. I guess a sequel to this book.
This is a book without a big plot. It is almost like a series of connected short stories. It is more about personalities, families and the daily life in the southern highlands. It’s not sentimental and there are some “rough” stories told. What impressed me most is how the people (though independent) come together to help one another when help is needed. Things like funerals. So much news ran through the churches, the small post office & store and word of mouth.
I think Caldwell caught the mountain dialect. It’s easier for me to hear than read. The mountain twang is slowly disappearing. As a kid I heard it all the time. I still love listening to older western Carolina women with what I hear as a hoarse, molasses voice. But it’s all slowly slipping away.
While reading this book I thought of Charles Frazier and Ron Rash (Cold Mountain and Serena). Frazier, Rash and Caldwell are all excellent storytellers who write meaningfully about the mountain south.
Sometimes I think we forget how desolate the Cataloochee area was just 150 yrs ago. It is wonderful that we have saved so many of the beautiful hardwood forests of the area. Although almost all of the chestnut trees died decades ago. However, the park can be a zoo at times. Too many cars and people. If you’re interested in visiting Cataloochee take exit #20 (Maggie Valley exit) off I-40 and immediately start working your way north. It’s not far. Western elk now roam the area. Very pretty in the Fall.
I’m looking forward to getting a copy of Caldwell’s Requiem by Fire. I guess a sequel to this book.
January 12, 2022
I really loved this book! I know it's only January but it will definitely be one of my favorite reads this year if not THE favorite. I rank it up there with another favorite of mine, Fair and Tender Ladies. The mountain folk community of Big and Little Cataloochee are written of so well it is like you are a part of their lives and see history from the Civil War to the 1920's through their eyes.
February 28, 2022
I wrote a review about Cataloochee that I put some thought into. Somehow, it mysteriously disappeared in the web. I will make this second one short and sweet. The first review wasn’t.
Great story about community, family, and the roots that bind people to the land that has been handed down within families for generations.
Great story about community, family, and the roots that bind people to the land that has been handed down within families for generations.
October 27, 2025
4.5 stars. Really enjoyed this time spent in the North Carolina Appalachians with these down home people of Cataloochee. Our drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway will never be the same after meeting these hard working people of the land. Thank you, my friends In the Southern Literary Trail.
March 3, 2013
The author provided great detail regarding tasks of mountain life (e.g. how to install a deadbolt in a new door) but almost no character development. I read 80 pages of this book and had to constantly refer back to the family tree to identify the characters as they did not have enough innate individuality to allow a reader to distinguish among them.
January 30, 2022
I absolutely loved this book and some of the characters in the story. It was interesting seeing how different the relationships were between man and wife and how life was based on working as a family together. Those that didn’t do so had no real success or joy. I think this is something we in modern times need to emulate.
Thank you Diane for letting me know I could listen to this through Hoopla.
I immediately listened to Requiem by Fire which was also good. Not quite as good and sad but a worthy book to read. 5 stars for Cataloochee and 4 for Requiem by Fire.
Thank you Diane for letting me know I could listen to this through Hoopla.
I immediately listened to Requiem by Fire which was also good. Not quite as good and sad but a worthy book to read. 5 stars for Cataloochee and 4 for Requiem by Fire.
April 28, 2015
I know the 5 comes from my love of this part of NC, outside Asheville, in the Smokies and the Blue Ridge.
The stories of the Banks, Carter and Wright families rings true for me.
My parents lived in Asheville for over thirty years and my father took us into the Smokies and all over the Blue Ridge, often driving blue highways and dirt roads. There remained many who made a life off tobacco, corn, apples and moonshine on two- or three- acre plots, always along a creek. They sold their produce along the road.
I drove from Maine to Asheville once and ended up off Route 23A. A man sat on his porch, rifle in his arms, dog by his side. He just nodded his head, a signal that I should just keep driving and seek direction elsewhere. I did just that.
The coming of the national park, long debated, certainly decimated the life of folks like those in the novel.. or this series of stories. I hated going to Gatlinburg, seeing Cherokee people with dancing chickens and tourists like me gaping at them. And the leveling of huge old growth forests and the pollution of rivers and streams in Buncombe and other counties is horrible. I'd cry inside every time we'd walk along the French Broad River and shiver at the building and "development" of land all over western NC and TN and KY.
I think Wayne Caldwell tells the history well, like Ron Rash and Charles Frazier and others.
I loved the jokes, the dialect, the unending insistance about what's dinner and what's supper. Was Jesus serving at The Last Dinner? Nope.
Passing on knowledge of the land and the sky, passing on, leaving your mark on the land and your kids and grandkids all resonates wherever you live.
This is a fine, fine book. It makes me miss North Carolina and all the memories I have of extended family and friends and acquaintances. There's just so much detailing Caldwell offers that lets a reader see all he captures.
The stories of the Banks, Carter and Wright families rings true for me.
My parents lived in Asheville for over thirty years and my father took us into the Smokies and all over the Blue Ridge, often driving blue highways and dirt roads. There remained many who made a life off tobacco, corn, apples and moonshine on two- or three- acre plots, always along a creek. They sold their produce along the road.
I drove from Maine to Asheville once and ended up off Route 23A. A man sat on his porch, rifle in his arms, dog by his side. He just nodded his head, a signal that I should just keep driving and seek direction elsewhere. I did just that.
The coming of the national park, long debated, certainly decimated the life of folks like those in the novel.. or this series of stories. I hated going to Gatlinburg, seeing Cherokee people with dancing chickens and tourists like me gaping at them. And the leveling of huge old growth forests and the pollution of rivers and streams in Buncombe and other counties is horrible. I'd cry inside every time we'd walk along the French Broad River and shiver at the building and "development" of land all over western NC and TN and KY.
I think Wayne Caldwell tells the history well, like Ron Rash and Charles Frazier and others.
I loved the jokes, the dialect, the unending insistance about what's dinner and what's supper. Was Jesus serving at The Last Dinner? Nope.
Passing on knowledge of the land and the sky, passing on, leaving your mark on the land and your kids and grandkids all resonates wherever you live.
This is a fine, fine book. It makes me miss North Carolina and all the memories I have of extended family and friends and acquaintances. There's just so much detailing Caldwell offers that lets a reader see all he captures.
November 18, 2010
I only made it halfway through this novel. The writing was clear and the dialect was charming, but this was closer to a collection of character sketches than a novel. As many reviews indicate, this is mostly a portrait of the community, but even if that's the goal, the reader still needs characters to lock into and follow through the narrative. From what I know of the plot, a stronger narrative hook (the relationship between Ezra and Zeb) was available, but not developed tightly enough to carry the reader through. Some further editing and refocusing could have improved this, I think, particularly the exposition-heavy beginning.
September 15, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Cataloochee… the area that is now part of the Great Smoky Mountains NP. A slow, well written story and characters about the families that initially settled there until the US gov intentions to take over their land. I really enjoyed this book!!!
Cataloochee… the area that is now part of the Great Smoky Mountains NP. A slow, well written story and characters about the families that initially settled there until the US gov intentions to take over their land. I really enjoyed this book!!!
January 4, 2009
Some nice insight into what life was like in an isolated Appalachian community in the late 19th/early 20th century.
This book seemed to be searching for some sort of focus--it covers a long time span, and there are many characters. The parts I enjoyed the most was when it slowed down, and dove into a story. Unfortunately there are some chapters where one paragraph would be about a character who jumped in age twenty years from we saw them last. It would say just a little more than "They got married". Then the next paragraph would be about another character dying that said little more "They died".
Still, it did slow down in a few places. There are some very enjoyable passages about the quirky characters and their daily life in the mountains. Unfortunately the author got a little carried away in ending these in weird deaths.
The characters are generally likable. Caldwell did seem to find focus in the end of the book, where it really zoomed in on a specific character and event. Plus it finally showed characters outside of Cataloochee, which helped establish context. It came together well.
For fans of Cold Mountain- besides the setting (Haywood County!), and a little bit of the history, there really isn't much in common. It's a completely different story, Caldwell's writing is much less descriptive, and the dialogue is flat in many places. However, there are very subtle references to characters/places in Cold Mtn. If anyone else noticed these, please comment!
This book seemed to be searching for some sort of focus--it covers a long time span, and there are many characters. The parts I enjoyed the most was when it slowed down, and dove into a story. Unfortunately there are some chapters where one paragraph would be about a character who jumped in age twenty years from we saw them last. It would say just a little more than "They got married". Then the next paragraph would be about another character dying that said little more "They died".
Still, it did slow down in a few places. There are some very enjoyable passages about the quirky characters and their daily life in the mountains. Unfortunately the author got a little carried away in ending these in weird deaths.
The characters are generally likable. Caldwell did seem to find focus in the end of the book, where it really zoomed in on a specific character and event. Plus it finally showed characters outside of Cataloochee, which helped establish context. It came together well.
For fans of Cold Mountain- besides the setting (Haywood County!), and a little bit of the history, there really isn't much in common. It's a completely different story, Caldwell's writing is much less descriptive, and the dialogue is flat in many places. However, there are very subtle references to characters/places in Cold Mtn. If anyone else noticed these, please comment!
March 21, 2008
I checked this out from the library because I was intrigued by the title. Cataloochee is not far from my home town, and the author's name (Caldwell) was a giveaway that he was familiar with North Carolina history. This is an extremely well written collection of vignettes that spans four generations in the Cataloochee community, beginning in the mid-1850's. The characters are well developed, and the author is able to easily jump large chunks of time without losing our attention, or the charm of his novel. Not only did I enjoy following the families from story to story, I learned quite a bit about a part of American History I had previously overlooked. The language in the book can get a little rough from time to time, so I'm guessing it's pretty accurate. That in mind, I won't be recommending this one to my son for a few years. I will be requiring this book as part of our future high-school history studies. I enjoyed this book more than Cold Mountain. I look forward to reading more from Mr. Caldwell.
September 12, 2015
As you vacation in the mountains and head to the Smokies or Blue Ridge, did you ever stop and think about those old barns and cabins sitting high up in mountain valleys?
Cataloochee tells the story of the Carter clan who lived in an area of North Carolina for four generations. They farmed, they fought the land, and they loved and died around the Catoloochee valley.
In the twenties, the Government made good on their threats, and decided their portion of paradise would become a portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
This is the story of the Carters and their neighbors. Each chapter is filled with characters and their stories of snakes, bears, hurricanes, falling rocks, murder, white lightning and also love for each other and the beauty of this land.
Entertaining and well written.
Cataloochee tells the story of the Carter clan who lived in an area of North Carolina for four generations. They farmed, they fought the land, and they loved and died around the Catoloochee valley.
In the twenties, the Government made good on their threats, and decided their portion of paradise would become a portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
This is the story of the Carters and their neighbors. Each chapter is filled with characters and their stories of snakes, bears, hurricanes, falling rocks, murder, white lightning and also love for each other and the beauty of this land.
Entertaining and well written.
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