Part of working in a library is helping people find books, and making reading recommendations. But happily, people let me know what they’re reading…what they’ve really enjoyed.  I love these two-way recommendations, and I think it’s only fair that I pass along to everyone else some of the recommendations that I have been receiving.

Not too long ago, someone returned the book “The Winter People” by John Ehle and told me it was really, REALLY good.  And after reading it, I have to say that I agree.

 Collie Wright and her baby boy live alone in a 150-year-old log cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.  She’s an unwed mother at the beginning of the Depression, and since she refuses to name young Jonathan’s father, she is the object of much talk and speculation within this mountain community, and even within her own family.  Collie is rocking Jonathan one evening when a man and a young girl come down off the mountain and to her cabin door.  Collie offers them a warm meal and a place to sleep for the night, not realizing how her life is about to change.

Wayland Jackson is a clock maker, traveling from Pennsylvania to Tennessee with his young daughter Paula.  His truck breaks down, and he seeks shelter at the first sign of life he sees.  Wayland also wonders about Collie, about her past, about her son…and before long, the decision is made.  Wayland and Paula will settle here, he’ll work repairing clocks and is also set to build a clock tower by the little church.  And too, he is determined to court Collie, an idea that seems pleasing to everyone except little Jonathan’s father.

John Ehle is well-known for his depiction of his native North Carolina through his many novels.  The Winter People was written in the early 80’s, and won the Lillian Smith Award which each year honors the best fiction about the South.  He writes of mountain life before too much outside influence arrives to change people and their habits.  He paints wonderful pictures of a past era and of an interesting community.  When Collie hears someone outside her cabin, she ponders:  “At first she had thought it was Jonathan’s father come home, and her blood had run cold, her breath had almost suffocated her with fear; however, he would have come pounding his way into the house.  If it had been Campbell hunters on their way home, as often happened, they would have stopped to explain; Campbells were not secretive people, were always willing to declare their actions, except for Skeet Campbell who was sneaky, but he was not altogether sane, either, seemed to her.  It wouldn’t be McGregors sneaking about at night; they sneaked about of a day, as a rule, and talked and drank at night.  No, it was doubtless her brother Gudger himself.  Whatever star that brother had been born under, it was a guardian angel’s; he saw himself as the protector of the family.”

John Ehle’s “The Winter People” is a story of love and devotion to family, and of the sacrifices that we make in the name of both.  I’m so glad I was introduced to this author.  I finished this novel almost in one sitting, and turned the last page with sadness, not wanting the story to end.