Oh, That Sharon McCrumb?

I'm bad with names. This seems illogical for an English major who had to be able to identify an author from a brief extract. Could do it then, but even then, there were hints that faces would impress me more than last names. So, I was extremely surprised after finishing The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and reading about Sharon McCrumb to realize I had already read two of her previous award-winning books: Bimbos of the Death Sun and If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O. I don't remember especially liking them, especially the first, but maybe because I read it when I was recuperating, received as a distraction from one of the Slackers. Another Slacker recommended Hangman's Daughter. This time I was seduced into the story after a paragraph or two.

McCrumb populates Dark Hollow, Tennessee with eccentric but believable people. The story is complicated in the interweaving of community lives, history, folklore, classical Shakespearean parallel plots, and myth. All pulled off quite readily and unobtrusively. The characters are contemporary archetypes: wives separated from their husbands off at war; veterans still lost in mental battlefields; rejoined childhood friends; and a wise woman who foresees the future.

The hangman referred to is the name of a mountain not the trade of a local citizen, and as such it very well could be that Nora Bonestell, the woman with insight, need not be the only beautiful daughter in town. Certainly the minister's wife, Laura Bruce has characteristics that shine. So does the heroic Tammy Robsart has qualities that are heroic beyond her young age. Even Maggie Underhill, the most tested of all the female characters, is sympathetically tragic.

This is not to say that McCrumb portrays women better than she describes the men who populate this small village in Appalachia. Tavy and Taw are champions of their town and keeping it as they remember from boyhood. The sheriff and his assistant have offbeat personal quirks and demons.

Besides all this powerful storyline and characterization, the book evokes a place. McCrumb often alludes to the pull of the hollers and mountains, calling prodigals back from big cities and compelling residents to rebuild on the same lot after each flood. There is no forced dialect, no reference to local food. Only a cycle of changing landscape, by season and by time. The isolation and simplicity of the community stands out by contrasting it with the war in the Middle East and how long it still takes to drive to North Carolina.

Comparing it to The Red Helmet, the Slacker selection for Kentucky, which also has a female lead trying to come to terms with her marriage causing her relocation into a new place, Hangman's, despite it's being classified in the mystery genre, is a more peaceful, real but illusionary State.

I will remember Sharon McCrumb's name now and seek out more of her stories.