“God must feel like this all the time—to know more than regular folks do and keep it to his self.”
If the Creek Don’t Rise, a novel by Leah Weiss, is an amazing study of Appalachian people in the 1970s. Sadie Blue, pregnant, has only been married fifteen days and has already been beaten several times by her mean, violent husband, Roy Tupkin. Roy not only beats her, but beats her down. She’s still a young girl, originally taken in by Roy’s charm. Sadie has ambition and potential. Has she thrown away any hope of achieving her dreams?
It causes a stir when Kate Shaw arrives to take the place of the previous teacher in the one-room school house, and she’s met by some with distrust. She’s an outsider and doesn’t understand their ways. But some come forward to make the new teacher feel welcome. Kate is aghast with conditions of this little community—the poverty, filth, and superstitions—but once she becomes acquainted she realizes there is much the eye can’t see.
The story is told in first person, present tense. The clearly defined characters range from wonderfully kind and generous to mean and spiteful. Although written in Appalachian dialect and backwoods thought patterns, the story is easy to read and understand. I very much enjoyed If the Creek Don’t Rise, written by an author born in eastern North Carolina and raised in the foothills of Virginia. The setting, characters, and situations are believable. I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in learning about Appalachia and its people.
Great review. Appalachian books like these are fun to read.
It was a fun read, Carmen, but also an eye-opener.