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Oral History Paperback | Pages: 286 pages

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Title	:	Oral History
Author	:	Lee Smith
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 286 pages
Published	:	August 27th 1996 by Ballantine Books (first published June 15th 1983)
Categories	:	Fiction. American. Southern. Historical. Historical Fiction

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This is a story about five generations of the Cantrell family. They live in Hoot Owl Holler in West Virginia. Southern life in the mountains of Appalachia is the book's story. The first Cantrell came from Ireland. The patriarch fought in the Civil War for the Union, lost a leg and when the remaining stump putrefied he died, leaving to his wife and three sons lots of land in the holler and up the sides of the three surrounding mountains. We follow these sons, their wives and offspring through the 20th century. The author knows Southern life intimately. Her writing captures well the dialect, the songs that are sung, the landscape with its mists, sparkling creeks birds and flora, the farming, the logging and the mining of coal. The traditions and beliefs of the inhabitants -- mystical, supernatural and religious. How babies are ‘caught’ by midwives, which herbs heal and those which poison. Corn can be sold in the market, but distilling it into liquor is more profitable. With so many hungry children to feed, that distilling is chosen is self-evident. All of the above is drawn in this story. We see the Prohibition, the Depression and the coming of roads, electricity and mining. More importantly we see the effects on the region’s people. This is the backdrop for the family drama of witches and hauntings, birth and death, feuds, passion and love affairs. What is drawn is based on knowledge of these people’s traditions and beliefs. The telling is drawn with taste. The sex is sensuous, not vulgar. I am not religious and I am skeptical of the supernatural, but this book shows why these people are religious and do believe in the supernatural. You see their world through their eyes. Only in this way can one properly learn about others’ lifestyles. Many small details fill this story, such as a particular pair of earrings, an apron or a chair. You see them once and then twenty-five years later. They pass down from one generation to another; they are no longer just any old thing. The objects take on meaning; each bears a particular significance. These details weave a story of lives over time. I was terribly impressed by the author’s ability to so cleverly intertwine the personal stories of five generations of a family. Without a hitch, all the details fit. The story progresses from one narrator to another as the years pass. This feels very natural as the focus shifts from one generation to the next. The book starts with Jennifer, a college student of our times who has taken a tape recorder home to talk to her relatives and catch the spirits of a haunted house for a school project. Then the story flips back in time and continues up to the present, where we first began. I was on the verge of giving the book five stars, but the end goes on too long. It loses its impact. I wish it had been shortened or tied up in another way. Jennifer and her mother’s life story are told too quickly, by a family member who does not really seem to care. How the concluding part of the story is told does fit she who is telling the story at this point and it does have amusing parts, but it still lost my interest. This is why I have given the book four rather than five stars. The audiobook has a full cast narration. The narrators are Christine McMurdo-Wallis, Sally Darling, Ruth Ann Phinister, Jeff Woodman, Tom Stechschulte and C. J. Critt. The persons telling the different portions of the story are well matched to the six narrators of the audiobook. The production of the audiobook is done with a flair—songs are sung, the narrators change not according to chapter divisions, but instead when most appropriate, usually when the person speaking changes. I have given the narration four stars. While I did prefer some of the narrators more than others, they all fit their respective character roles well. It was an advantage that a full cast performance was used. Do I recommend the book? Definitely. I also recommend listening to it with the full cast narration. *************** Oral History 4 stars Fair and Tender Ladies 4 stars Dimestore: A Writer's Life 2 stars

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Original Title:	Oral History
ISBN:	0345410289 (ISBN13: 9780345410283)
Edition Language:	English

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Ratings: 4.07 From 3639 Users | 191 Reviews

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I enjoyed this book, but I could have done without the bookend chapters that gave the context of a college student's oral history project. I would have preferred to have those omitted and allow the stories to grow organically without the artifice of the given context.The stories, which are the "oral histories," can and do stand on their own.

I would honestly rank this book between three and four. I loved the voices of the mountain people, and the glimpses of the unique and vibrant culture of Appalachia. In one long section, the narration was delivered by a young teacher from Richmond, and the language was a little precious -- to show a contrast in education and world view, I am sure, but I didn't enjoy that portion of the book as much. The blurb summarizes a shell narrative that is extraneous to the real action. There isn't a

Read carefully, or you will miss the point. This Smith classic is one of the most beautiful and stark examples of Appalachian stereotyping put to the test. Every character counts in this story. So pay attention...

I wanted to love this book so much. I still want to love it but I found it a bit tedious and underwhelming. I love Appalachia and I loved the first Almarine, the story of his witch, and Pricey Jane. I loved Dory and Richard. And then I felt like things got more and more fragmented as I didn't develop relationships with the other characters and found it harder to stay engaged.

I can't say enough good things about Lee Smith, but since she is so very local to Virginia and North Carolina it's hard to find her outside of the area. Writing in the redneck dialect is dicey, something that could go incredibly badly, and she pulls it off oh so very well.

So this book was somewhere between four and five stars for me - closer to five because it kept me very interested and I finished it within a week. I'm slower to the game than many of my colleagues and friends because this is the first Lee Smith book I've read and if you are literate and live in Southwest Virginia, you had better have read Lee Smith. While I grew up in Appalachia, I don't know that I ever really identified myself as such. I grew up in the hills about a mile away from the nearest

Oral History takes place in western Virginia and spans nearly one hundred years. It follows the Cantrell family and covers among others: a man returning from the Civil War without a leg, a witch, a bootlegger, a coal miner, and an Amway distributor.I thought there were some aspects to the book that I wished Smith had done differently. The tale of the family is bracketed by a story of Jennifer, a young woman who is looking into the history of her own family for a college project. That story was