The Devil's Dream

by Lee Smith

Overview

Now back in print from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls.

It was in 1833 or '34 that Moses Bailey brought young Kate Malone down to Cold Spring Holler to be his wife. But Moses, wanting to become a preacher like his daddy was, left Kate time and again to look after the kids while he went out in search of a sign from God. Though he warned them about the evils of playing the fiddle, a kind of music he likened to the devil's own laughter, it passed the time for his bride and children, and soon became not just a way of life for the Baileys, but a curse that would last for generations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425239711
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/2011
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lee Smith was born in Grundy, VA. She is author of many novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Last Girls, and most recently Guests On Earth. She is a recipient of the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and a Southern Book Critics Circle Award.

Editorial Reviews

A thoroughly entertaining eighth novel from Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies, 1988, etc.) traces the roots of an extended, country-western "singing" family from 1830's hollow to contemporary Nashville. The story opens with plans for a country Christmas family reunion at the Opreyland Hotel. Katie Cocker, superstar of country music, is gathering together her famous relatives—from Tampa Rainette, nearly 100 years old and one of the original Grassy Branch Girls, to Rose Annie, whose hit song "Subdivision Wife" is based on her own life, leaving her adoring husband for her no-good, rockabilly, childhood sweetheart. (Now she's serving time for his murder.) In the story behind the story, this "singing" family—Baileys, most of them—gets its start in Cold Spring Holler in 1833 when music-loving Kate Malone marries Moses Bailey, a self- styled preacher who thinks the fiddle is the devil's plaything. From that union comes Zeke Bailey, a generous-hearted simpleton, lover of hard work, church meeting, and fiddle-music, who inherits the land on which the Grassy Branch, a twisty little creek, flows. Zeke's offspring, R.C. (actually Zeke's wife's illegitimate son) and Durwood, carry on the musical tradition, each marrying talented women who start the Grassy Branch Girls. The next generation, which includes Rosie, Johnny and Katie, experiment briefly with the Grassy Branch Quartet, a gospel group, before their lives take them away from the hollow on separate (musical) paths. In letting each of her characters tell his story in his own voice, Smith creates a vividly labyrinthine world of family ties in which music is always a part. Clearly she is paying homage to a place and people who havecontributed so much to the American music scene. And in so doing she traces the roots and variations of country music, from primitive Baptist hymns and fiddle-playing, to gospel, rockabilly, and contemporary country western. A real treat—and an education.

Kirkus Reviews