A Recommended Read

Once in a while I read a book so good I have to comment on it before the end of the month round-up of reads.

If you enjoy well-researched and well-written historical fiction, as I do, give this book a try:

I rate it a solid five and put it in the same category as Where The Crawdads Sing which has been #1 on The NY Times Fiction Best Sellers list for weeks.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson combines the history of a WPA job creation enterprise for women known as The Pack Horse Library Project, which lasted from 1935 to 1943 in the poorest and most isolated areas of Eastern Kentucky, with the lives of the remaining descendants of a family whose skin was blue. (Based on the real Fugate family - The Blue People of Kentucky.)

I vaguely remember once hearing/reading about the blue skinned people, but I think I related them as part of the Melungeons of Appalacia without learning my error. As for the Pack Horse Library Project, I had never heard/read of it. (Only the New Deal WPA and CCC projects for men.)

When I began this book, reading about the poor, mostly illiterate, proud, clinging to the old ways, people, I felt as though I was reading about life in the 1800's. I had to remind myself the book was set in the 1930's. I thought surely by then things were much better for them. Then I remembered a class I took at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids. One of my classmates was a woman who had been working as a visiting nurse, tending to people in the hills, hollars and back woods of Kentucky. Her stories of families still living without electricity or running water and distrustful of 'outsiders' were remarkable - almost hard to believe - and that was in 1967!

There are eight pages of photos of the real women of the Pack Horse Libary Project at the end of this book. Regardless of weather conditions, they went by horse, mule and shanks' mare, traveling many miles, to deliver reading materials to their patrons* - all for wages (sorely needed) of $28.00 a month. I know how much I would have welcomed a Book Woman had I lived there and then. What an amazing service they provided.

This is Richardson's fourth novel and the only one available through my two libraries at this time. I would love to read her first three. I will return my books to Gibson Memorial Library some time next week, so consider adding it to your reading list. I don't think you will be disappointed.

*Now that I am a Patreon of at least one author, material is delivered fast and on time via E-mail - no mules involved. 😉