"In The Road From Gap Creek [Morgan] delivers another powerhouse novel of his people, with their virtues and failings, wins and losses, loves and sorrows."
-- "Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone"
"Morgan pens an eloquent story of stoicism and pain, endurance and courage, ending as all life will, with death and birth. A moving, lyrical saga from a time so distant, yet so near."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
"Robert Morgan remains the consummate storyteller...This book must be read for its broad, sagacious wit as well as for its power to convince us of extraordinary courage seen in ordinary life."
-- "Elizabeth Cox, author of The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love" “This is a story I seem to remember like it was yesterday . . . The day we moved to Green River, the road from Gap Creek was froze stiff as chalk. I wasn’t even five, but I remember that morning was cold. We got up in the dark and Papa built a big fire in the fireplace, burning up the things we didn’t need. All the stuff we had would fit in that one wagon, or it had to be left behind. I thought Velmer and my older sister, Effie, and me was going to ride on the wagon too, but Papa said there wasn’t no room. We’d have to walk.”
Strong-willed Annie Richards Powell, a preacher’s wife raised by hardscrabble dirt farmers, begins her story on the worst day in her family’s life: a day that arrived years after her family’s trip—by wagon and on foot—from Gap Creek, South Carolina, to Green River, North Carolina, and into the home where she would grow up with her siblings, Effie, Velmer, and, finally, Troy, the baby and golden boy. A resilient and clear-eyed narrator, she lets us watch as one-by-one the Richards children create their own histories, which include both triumphs and terrible losses in the face of the Great Depression and then World War II and its aftermath. Through the Richards family, Morgan explores modern American history as it played out in the Blue Ridge Mountains—a region cut off from mainstream life until World War II took those mountain boys to fight in far-off lands and changed their world forever. The rough-hewn beauty of the land and its people are visible on every page of The Road from Gap Creek—a tribute to an ordinary family persevering through extraordinary times. This is Robert Morgan at his finest.
The saga of the Richards family began in Robert Morgan’s 1999 novel Gap Creek, an Oprah Book Club Selection that attracted hundreds of thousands of readers to its beguiling tale of the first year and a half of Annie’s parents’ marriage at the turn of the twentieth century. Now, in a masterful weaving of fact and fiction, Morgan introduces a new generation looking ahead to the uncertainties of the future, the struggle to define oneself, and the rediscovery of enduring love.
From the Back Cover
“Masterful Storytelling.”*
One of America’s most acclaimed writers returns to the land on which he has staked a literary claim to paint an indelible portrait of a family in a time of unprecedented change. In a compelling weaving of fact and fiction, Robert Morgan introduces a family’s captivating story, set during World War II and the Great Depression. Driven by the uncertainties of the future, the family struggles to define itself against the vivid Appalachian landscape. The Road from Gap Creek explores modern American history through the lives of an ordinary family persevering through extraordinary times.
“Morgan pens an eloquent story of stoicism and pain, endurance and courage, ending as all life will, with death and birth. A moving, lyrical saga from a time so distant, yet so near.” ―Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“This novel shines with a subtle brilliance . . . Morgan has produced another stellar novel, one with greater depth, diversity and complexity than Gap Creek.” ―Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Robert Morgan has the talent and vast empathy required to bring back the real and deliver it to us as wonderful fiction . . . In The Road from Gap Creek, he delivers another powerhouse novel of his people, with their virtues and failings, wins and losses, loves and sorrows.” ―Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone
“This book must be read for its broad, sagacious wit as well as for its power to convince us of extraordinary courage seen in ordinary life.” ―Elizabeth Cox, author of The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love
“Unforgettable characters face the tolls of World War II and the changing of their pocket of America.” ―*Ivan Doig, author of The Bartender’s Tale
About the Author
Robert Morgan, a poet and novelist raised on land settled by his Welsh ancestors, is a native of North Carolina mountains that act as the backdrop for his intensely personal writing. He has won the James B. Hanes Poetry Prize, the North Carolina Award in Literature, and the Jacaranda Review Fiction Prize.
Emma Galvin won the 2011 Audie Award for best fiction narration, was a finalist for the Audie Award in 2012, and won six AudioFile Earphones Awards for her narrations. A graduate of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, her film appearances include My Suicidal Sweetheart, A Perfect Fit, and The Big Bad Swim. She has performed in several regional theater productions, including Love Punky, The Power of Birds, and The Realm.
