Black Mountain Breakdown - Softcover

Smith, Lee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345301250 ISBN 13: 9780345301253

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1981

Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls presents one of her most compelling novels, acclaimed by Anne Tyler, Annie Dillard, and more...

Everywhere about her, from the traffic on Highway 460 to the river that's gone black with coal dust, Crystal Spangler sees a current flowing from the mountain town of Black Rock into the wider world. As a teenager, she is elected beauty queen, gets good grades, and-despite her many enviable qualities-manages also to be well-loved. Everyone knows that she is destined to leave town and do great things.

And she does.

But no one expects her return; drawn back home by some sort of memory, as if the current that had taken her away had changed its mind...

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Crystal Spangler lives in rural Appalachia. She's the apple of her mother's eye -- not yet beautiful, but she will be. She's the most popular girl at Black Rock High. She makes cheerleader, gets good grades, and is elected beauty queen. Crystal discovers God, goes to college, and falls in love. When she comes home, she's disheveled and confused. Crystal becomes a wealthy politician's wife. But there's something calling her, drawing her back to where it all began, in the shadow of Black Mountain . . .

About the Author:

Lee Smith is the author of The Last Girls, Oral History, Fair and Tender Ladies, and other novels, and a recent story collection, Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger. She has won the O. Henry Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0345301250
• ISBN 13: 9780345301253
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1