Ghost Riders

Rating:
Summary: McCrumb at the top of her form
Review: "In 1861 the Civil War reached the mountain South -- where the enemy was your neighbor, the victims were you friends, and the wrong army was whichever one you joined." Families split apart, war was an excuse for murder, and guerrillas fought old feuds.

In the latest of her "ballad series", McCrumb departs from her usual mystery format. Instead, she focuses on alternating stories of real historical characters with stories of people in the present attempting to connect with the past.

A group of Civil War re-enactors are playing at war, and Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, a recurring character in McCrumb's book, learns, to his surprise, that an Arrowood was killed in a battle that occurred after the war officially ended, and that he was a Union soldier.

The historical story lines are fascinating, and led me to do more research on the people. Zebulon Vance was a self-made man, lawyer and Congressman. Though he argued against secession, when war came, he became a Confederate officer, later becoming the Confederate governor of North Carolina and was a strong voice for the people of Appalachia. After the war, he eventually became Governor again, and ended his career in the United States Senate.

The other story is even more interesting. McKesson (Keith) Blalock was a Union sympathizer, but in Confederate North Carolina he was likely to be conscripted into the army. He enlisted, planning to desert and join the federal forces. But he didn't reckon that his troop's movements would make that difficult. He also didn't reckon on his wife, Malinda, following him, disguised as a man. The two eventually concoct a scheme to be discharged, and return home but Blalock's sympathies were known, and they were in danger. In time, both fled to the mountains, spending the war as guerrillas. This story, told through Malinda's voice, tells a side of the war that isn't taught much, where neighbor killed neighbor and relative killed relative.

Meanwhile, in the present, the re-enactors have, unintentionally, conjured up ghosts, ghosts who have ridden before, and who are seen by the likes of Nora Bonesteel and Rattler, who have the Sight, and by those who are dying. The veil between past and present is rent.

McCrumb has a real feel for language, and for getting into the skin of her characters. Malinda, particularly, struck me as being deeply understood. A lesser writer might have been tempted to draw her as an anachronism, to make her a "modern" woman, which would be terribly wrong. McCrumb respects her. She's a woman of her time and place, and, though unusual for that time and place, she was not unique.

Not an easy book to put down, though I admit to stopping now and again to do a bit of research into the characters and historical events McCrumb's writing about. That she led me to do that says a lot.


Rating:
Summary: Ghost Riders--The End of the Trail
Review: In author Sharyn McCrumb's "Ghost Riders" her thematic characters of Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and cast of local West-Carolina characters may have reached then end of a happy trail. Had this book been published before "Cold Mountain" it would have been regarded as an insightful exploration of pockets of discontent within the Confederacy. Because "Ghost Riders" came out after "Cold Mountain," McCrumb's more readable book, however, must take a backseat in the originality category.

Likewise, this book lacks innovation in several of its parallel story lines. Women dressing up as men to follow their husband's to war have been recounted numerous times. Apparitions around battlefields are also old news or no news at all. Likewise, gazing up at the stars and conceptualizing that they were as thick as eggs laid on the water by a frog is reminiscent of a similar conversation between Huck and Jim in Twain's "Huck Finn."

The book's strength is in its telling of historical fact in a fictionalized fashion. Such books, like "The Killer Angels," give the average reader a continuity and connectivity to history that cannot be achieved thru history courses that dwell on, at worst, chronology and, at best, context. In this context Zebulon Vance, the wartime governor of North Carolina, is the best-portrayed character in McCrumb's book.

Some of the parallel stories could have been left out of McCrumb's book completely. Tom Gentry's journey out of the modern world and into the modern wilderness adds little to the book. The character "Rattler" is also weak and nominally provides a vehicle to interweave the other plots and players.

McCrumb's books have been valuable to me during a time of convalescence in which I eagerly read all of her "Arrowood" series. These books brought back many memories of family stories that have been passed down by my family for generations. I am disappointed in "Ghost Riders" because it simply did not have the substance and suspense of her earlier volumes. In addition, Ghost Riders came to an abrupt end with many threads left dangling, not as a mechanism to lead into the next volume, simply the trail went cold.





Rating:
Summary: Fun to read
Review: Ms McCrumb did an excellent job! Her book is entertaining, informative (regarding the history of the Appalachians), and her prose was a joy to read. Other reviewers didn't appreciate her style of going back and forth between the past and present characters, but I thought it worked well into the story, and gave the novel another dimension. After reading Ghost Riders, I plan to read Ms McCrumb's other books; as I really enjoyed her writing style.

Rating:
Summary: Ghosts from the past, dead but not forgotten.
Review: Sharyn McCrumb is the consummate storyteller, mainly based on old ballads. Sometimes, she takes an oldtime yarn instead as is the basis for this newest rendering of hers. This one could have been called the Ballad of Sam Blalock.

She is too young to know firsthand the dialect and oldtime sayings she uses in this book. One in particular took my attention, "as the war wore on...." but on page 281 I was perturbed by her use of "a barking cat" -- surely this got past the editors. I've had cats as pets since 1979 and have yet to hear one bark. Tosca growled like a dog when she ate when we first got her, but she had lived in the country and had to eat the same as the dogs.

Her versatility is beyond compare. She peoples this book with luminaries such as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Generals Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart and the infamous Tom Dooley. Some of these folks are supposed to be real, others are carry overs from her other novels of the Appalachians (like old friends).

Politics are still the same, just as dirty and biased. It's good to know that today's leaders are not so original after all.

Using a young man as the main character is unusual for a woman writer, I think, but she gets into his mind and it comes off well. He is the real star of this book though he is peripheral and supposedly a minor character. After all, he is the one who actually sees and talks with the Ghost Riders.

The story is as well told as all her previous books. She is my favorite writer so I do have some of her best, others I passed on to people to introduce her style and expertise in Appalachian folklore.

This is entertaining and informative. She bases her stories on fact then elaborates -- as all good novelists do. She states that historians may indeed be fallible or even mendacious, but most are serious writers in their own right.

Rating:
Summary: McCrumb Just Continues to Hone Her Craft
Review: She just gets better and better with each book she writes. I can't compare her writing to another author because I don't know of one I could even fit into this category. She's in a class all her own. It seems this one is my favorite, but when her next one comes out, I'll probably say it is my new favorite.

Enough has been written in other reviews about the story's various voices and characters, Civil War era, etc. Sharyn continues to interweave fact with fiction with great finesse in her novels. I devoured it as I have done with her others.

When I think back to what originally attracted me to her books, it was that she lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia - my home state. However, the attraction grew into fascination with her ballad novels. Sharyn's historical research is excellently showcased with a superb ficitonal framework.

I attended a Ghost Riders reading/signing by Sharyn and she is not only wonderful to read, but spell-binding in person. She is a walking treasure trove of mountain lore and quite entertaining.

This book is a powerful commentary on many issues, not the least "a mountain woman's lot in 1861."

Rating:
Summary: Very Dull
Review: The author had an excellent idea and a few good lines but overall didn't do justice to the ghost story genre.
Perhaps if she re-named the book to attract a different audience, she would get more happy readers.
I am not a big civil war buff so my opinion is a little bias. On the other hand, I tried and tried to get interested in the characters and Ghost Riders still bored me to tears.

Rating:
Summary: Epic- Brilliant!- Get Ready for a Late Night of Reading!
Review: This is one of the better books that I have read this year. When I was finished I wanted to read it again. I have read other civil war novels and this is the first from the perspective of the "mountain people".

Rating:
Summary: Ghost Riders - a Hauntingly Beautiful Book
Review: This novel is light years better than "If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O", the only other McCrumb book I've read (and which had uneven quality in the narrative and a somewhat lame ending). "Ghost Riders" is a deeply fascinating tapestry of stories woven around the Civil War experiences of several protagonists in and near the North Carolina mountains. Somehow Ms. McCrumb brings different times and stories together in a seamless web of drama and intrigue. I am reminded of "Cold Mountain" (but with even more complex layers), which is about the highest compliment I can give. This is one I may read again next week.

Rating:
Summary: Another McCrumb success!
Review: With each book in the Appalachian folk series, McCrumb has moved closer and closer to history and has integrated more and more characters with the Sight, as well as the object of their Sightings. In my opinion, Rosewood Casket was a flawless balance, with each character rendered three-dimensionally and the supernatural touches deft and light. Frankie Silver and Songcatcher were close.

I wouldn't miss anything by McCrumb, but here I get the feeling she was pushing herself to a new level and at the same time covering some of the same ground. Because she sets the scene in the same place as earlier novels, we meet the old familiar characters, such as Nora Bonesteel and Spencer Arrowood. In Ghost Riders they make cameo appearances, almost dropping in to say hello to their old friends, the readers.

And the Ghost Riders are not at all subtle. They're seen by those who have the Sight and by those who are close to dying. I didn't get a sense that they were dangerous or even particularly scary. Nora Bonesteel's visions were tame compared to what went before.

And, for the first time in McCrumb's books, the historical scenes become more vivid than the present. We get a sense of the complexity of the Civil War and the ironies of who fought where.

McCrumb delivers another success -- well worth picking up and reading, though not quite as deep, and definitely not as lyrical as some of its predecessors. And I am already awaiting the author's next book...will she continue with the ballads or give us another chapter of the McPhersons?
Either way, I'm ready!