Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories - Hardcover

McCrumb, Sharyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345414934 ISBN 13: 9780345414939

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1997

Synopsis

"In an earlier life, McCrumb must have been a balladeer, singing of restless spirits, star-crossed lovers, and the consoling beauty of nature. . . . The overall effect is spellbinding."
--The Washington Post

Bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb is "a born storyteller" (Mary Higgins Clark) who astonishes readers and reviewers with the power and scope of her talent, prompting the San Diego Union-Tribune to declare: "There is no one quite like her among present-day writers. No one better, either."

Foggy Mountain Breakdown, the first-ever collection of Sharyn McCrumb's short fiction, is a literary quilting of old and new, humorous and heartfelt, offering award-winning works--and two stories never before published, contrasting mountain childhoods past and present.

Chilling tales of suspense alternate with evocative character portraits and compelling narratives that embrace the southern Appalachian locales and themes of McCrumb's acclaimed Ballad Novels. Within this cornucopia of two dozen stories, Old Rattler, a mountain healer, skirmishes with a serial killer . . . Princess Di investigates long-kept secrets within the House of Windsor . . . A reincarnated murder victim seeks delicious revenge . . . And while honeymooning in the bridegroom's ancestral hilltop homeplace, two newlyweds harbor second thoughts.

The author's perfect-pitch ear for dialogue and ability to illuminate the dark side of human nature merge with her brilliant artistry to make Foggy Mountain Breakdown a virtuoso collection for devotees of Sharyn McCrumb--and for the legion of new readers who will find themselves caught under her spell.  

About this title

Review:

"I come from a race of stortytellers," writes Sharyn McCrumb in her introduction to the first complete collection of her wonderfully rich and mordant short stories. "My father's family--the Arrowoods and the McCourys--settled in the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina when the wilderness was still Indian country." Like McCrumb's fine novels (She Walks These Hills and a dozen others), these 24 stories link the mysteries of the past with life in present-day Appalachia, using chains of words stronger than any steel.

From the Back Cover:

The first-ever collection of Sharyn McCrumb's short fiction, FOGGY MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN is a literary quilting of old and new, offering award-winning works and two stories never before published. Chilling tales of suspense alternate with evocative character portraits and compelling narratives that embrace the southern Appalachian locales and themes of McCrumb's acclaimed Ballad Novels. The author's perfect-pitch ear for dialogue and ability to illuminate the dark side of human nature merge with her brilliant artistry to make this volume a virtuoso collection for devotees of Sharyn McCrumb -- and for the legion of new readers who will find themselves caught under her spell.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0345414934
• ISBN 13: 9780345414939
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 326