The Songcatcher by Sharyn McCrumb
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.98 You Save: $3.01 (38%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Songcatcher
Book Review: Fictionalized family tree story is a treat
Summary: 3 Stars
Sharyn McCrumb has given us a fictionalized version of her family tree, and it's a treat.
John Walker is dying and his housekeeper summons his estranged daughter home. His daughter, Linda, now a famous folksinger known as Lark, suffers an accident on the way home, however, and is stranded on a mountainside with faint chance of rescue. To see her through her ordeal, the 911 officer she managed to reach on her cell phone before the battery died promises to track down a folk song she heard when she was a child.
Interspersed with the events taking place in the present day is the story of Malcolm McCourry, a young Scots lad kidnapped by sailors in 1759, when he was nine years old. Although I was a bit confused the first time the story jumped back two hundred years, it didn't take me long to make the connection between Malcolm McCourry and John Walker, and I followed the subsequent years and generations with interest.
A quick read, and enjoyable.
Book Review: Enjoyable, but not the best of series
Summary: 3 Stars
For some reason, this one doesn't move me as much as others in this series. A little too much paralellism, perhaps, a little too much of the past and not enough of the presence? And it DOES annoy me when a novel about ballads gets details of a ballad wrong. McCrumb tells us that the demon in the House Carpenter is the carpenter himself, when it's the long-lost lover.Book Review: Not her best...
Summary: 2 Stars
I've read all of Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian novels and eagerly looked forward to reading this one. I did finish it, but it seemed far more chore than pleasure. We spent so much time bouncing around between characters in different times and places that I never really developed much interest in any of them. I hoped I would become hooked right until the last page and was almost relieved when I finally finished. If you've never read Sharon McCrumb, try her earlier novels, particularly "She Walks These Hills," and "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter."