Product Description

There is a most unusual woman living in Gap Creek. Julie Harmon works hard, "hard as a man," they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her to slaughter the hogs and nurse the dying. People are weak, and there is so much to do. She is just a teenager when her little brother dies in her arms. That same year she marries and moves down into the valley where floods and fire and visions visit themselves on her, and con men and drunks and lawyers come calling.

Julie and her husband discover that the modern world is complex and that it grinds ever on without pause or concern for their hard work. To survive, they must find out whether love can keep chaos and madness at bay.

Robert Morgan's latest novel, Gap Creek, returns his readers to the vivid world of the Appalachian high country. Julie and Hank's new life in the valley of Gap Creek in the last years of the nineteenth century is more complicated than the couple ever imagined. Sometimes it's hard to tell what to fear most-the fires and floods or the flesh-and-blood grifters, drunks, and busybodies who insinuate themselves into their new lives. Their struggles with nature, with work, with the changing century, and with their disappointments and triumphs make this a riveting follow-up to Morgan's acclaimed novel, The Truest Pleasure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #551526 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 324 pages

Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2000: Robert Morgan's Gap Creek opens with one wrenching death and ends with another. In between, this novel of turn-of-the-century Appalachian life works in fire, flood, swindlers, sickness, and starvation--a truly biblical assortment of plagues, all visited on the sturdy shoulders of 17-year-old Julie Harmon. "Human life don't mean a thing in this world," she concludes. And who could blame her? "People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn't mean a thing.... The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business." For Julie, that business is hard physical labor. Fortunately, she's fully capable of working "like a man"--splitting and hauling wood, butchering hogs, rendering lard, planting crops, and taking care of the stock. Even when Julie meets and marries handsome young Hank Richards, there's no happily-ever-after in store. Nothing comes easy in Julie Harmon's world, and their first year together is no exception.

Throughout the novel, Morgan chronicles Julie's trials in prose of great dignity and clarity, capturing the rhythms of North Carolina speech by using only the subtlest of inflections. Clearly the author has done his research too--the descriptions of physical labor practically leap off the page. (Suffice to say, you'll learn far more about hog slaughtering than you ever dreamed of knowing.) Yet he resists the temptation to make his long-suffering characters into saints. Julie simmers with resentment at being her family's workhorse, and Hank flies into a helpless rage whenever he feels that his authority is questioned. In novels like The Truest Pleasure and The Hinterlands, Morgan proved his ability to create memorable heroines. In Gap Creek, he writes with great feeling--but not a touch of sentimentality--about a life Julie aptly calls "both simple and hard."

From AudioFile
Like too many selections from Oprah's Book Club, GAP CREEK is saturated with tragedy, hardship and melodrama. Running the gamut from family strife to floods and famine, Robert Morgan's story presents the listener with the deep poverty found in the rural Carolinas. The voice of the reader is well suited for the undereducated, hard-working heroine, Julie Harmon. Her subtle Southern accent, although choppy at times, coupled with Morgan's "country grammar," makes the narrative sound believable, even as personal difficulties spiral out of control. Overall, a mediocre story and a slightly above-average reading make GAP CREEK an enjoyable audiobook. But one has to wonder if the abridgment removed all the happy episodes from the lead character's life. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Whatever trials Job suffered were nothing compared to the tribulations that befall Julie Harmon Richards. Following the deaths of her younger brother and father, 17-year-old Julie takes one look at 18-year-old Hank Richards and falls in love. Following their marriage a month later, the two move from their North Carolina homes to Gap Creek, South Carolina, where Hank works at a cotton mill and Julie cooks and cleans for a Mr. Pendergast in exchange for room and board. Pendergast is fatally injured trying to rescue his hidden savings during a devastating fire, and Julie, now pregnant, gives all of Pendergast's money to a man who tells her he is the lawyer for the bank that holds the mortgage on the house. Gap Creek floods and the house is ruined. Julie's baby lives only for a few months. Finally, Pendergast's heirs show up, so Hank and Julie, now pregnant again, leave Gap Creek for an uncertain future. Although Morgan, author of The Truest Pleasure (1995), has written better novels, even readers numbed by the seemingly endless series of disasters will respect Julie's strength of character and wish her well. Nancy Pearl

Customer Reviews

depressing
I read books to learn about places and people and history--I already knew enough of what these people experienced and went through--I had a hard time finishing the book (I read at least one book a day)--but finished it because I never do not complete a book--I kept thinking maybe something would happen wonderful in the end--anyway, it is the most depressing book I've ever read & I have read 1,000's of books!

Vivid, elemental, relentless
"Gap Creek: the Story of a Marriage" by Robert Morgan relates the early marriage of 17-year-old Julie and 18-year-old Hank at the rustic start of the twentieth century. Julie is the narrator; sometimes her relatively uneducated, although perfectly fitting, first-person voice becomes a bit wearing.

"Whatever man marries you will be the lucky one," Papa once said to Julie, "For you're the best of my girls, the best one." Papa had gotten gravely ill, and Julie hated that all the heavy work on the farm just naturally fell to her. Sister Lou helped some, but Rosie stayed in the kitchen, and young Carolyn was spoiled by everyone. The very young, only brother, Masenier, had recently died of a misunderstood and grossly disturbing condition.

Because of hard life on the farm, Julie had not been around boys much. But the first time she saw Hank she thought he was the handsomest she had ever seen. She was too embarrassed to speak, she says, but uncharacteristically she boldly looked right back at him and couldn't take her eyes away.

Mama invites Hank to church. And afterwards, to dinner. In a very funny scene Julie, all nervous and clumsy, splashes hot coffee on his knee, thinking she has "ruined everything." Not so. Less than a month later, they marry, and leave Mama's mountain home in the North Carolina, and walk to a valley called Gap Creek, in South Carolina.

They move to a farm there and a house owned by Mr. Pendergast, who still lives in the front bedroom. Rent is the meals Julie fixes and the wash she does for him. The young married couple's first night together is quite tender and humorous. As one might expect, the house situation becomes quite horrendous, even more so when Hank's mother, Ma Richards, comes for an extended visit.

In relentless, elemental, unbelievable detail, Robert Morgan portrays the whole gamut of the human condition, in a year of strife, fire, death, deception, theft, raging flood, famine, and childbirth. Yet it is not without understanding, resilience, and unexpected reliance.

What came to my mind on finishing the last page, were the words of the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1.9):
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing under the sun."

Still there is hope and promise. A stirring exposition.

Beautiful book, must appreciate simplicity!
This is by far one of the best books I've read in a long time. The writing is simple, but deep. The heroine is young and nieve, but she learns many wise lessons while at Gap Creek. This is a story that any woman can relate to!

It made me want to get off the couch and get work done around the house!