Christy (1967)

I think I was in high school when I first read this. But the saga of a pampered young woman moving to a desolate "town" in the Appalachian Mountains on a simple call of faith has stayed with me ever since. ( )

As evidenced by the dilapidated condition of my copy, I was wistfully, passionately in love with [b:Christy|229123|Christy|Catherine Marshall|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389406901s/229123.jpg|3158544] throughout my adolescence. Reading it for the first time in a decade or more, I was surprised how well it holds up. The characters were still well drawn and the dialogue believable, as is Christy's personal growth and struggle with faith over the course of the book. Fairlight's death and Christy's own nearly succumbing to the typhoid epidemic brought me close to tears, just as before. And as before, I hated to see the book come to an end.

Only a couple of things struck me more forcefully than they did when I was younger. First, I love when David gets schooled by Aunt Polly Teague, though I find it sadly believable that a seminarian dispatched from the heart of the modernist controversy would be ill-equipped to offer real pastoral care under those circumstances. Second, when I was 11 and encountering Miss Alice's backstory for the first time, I had mercifully little idea what I was reading. What a shocking account of abuse -- though again, horribly plausible.

I would like to understand more of Christy's and Neil's dynamic, as that thread cuts off way too abruptly for me. And I don't feel worshipful toward Miss Alice any longer, though she's still a pretty great character. On the whole, I'm pleased to discover how much I still love this book. ( )

Christy has long been one of my favorite books. I think I first read it in my late teens; it was one inspiration that influenced me to want to be a teacher. Christy's story is inspirational and captivating, with a touch of romance.

I'll admit, I also purchased the audiobook, which is narrated by Kellie Martin (who played Christy in the TV series). Superbly done!

It was a pleasure to revisit a longtime favorite. ( )

Originally published in 1967, Christy is a historical fiction novel based on the experience of the author's mother teaching at a Christian mission in the Smoky Mountains in the early 1900s. Both the real Leonora and the fictionalized Christy at 19 leave their homes in North Carolina to teach children of poverty in the mountains of Tennessee. Having grown up with Leonora's stories, Catherine Marshall was able to make the people of Appalachia come alive. She told the story of their hardships, but also of their hearts and spirits. Marshall allows us to experience vicariously the difficulty of living without basic necessities in situations we would find primitive and grossly unclean. She then leads us to see the mountain people as valued individuals rather than being identified by group stereotypes. We celebrate their achievements, sorrow over their losses, and cheer on their best efforts. The mentoring character of Miss Alice Henderson, a Quaker mission worker from Pennsylvania, helps Christy, the young pastor David Grantland, and the reader come to deeper spiritual understandings.

Christy is not a book that you will soon forget, and is likely one that you will want to reread from time to time. I owe, in a large part, my going into the field of education to having read this book while in high school. Having read it again over the years, it was like coming together with old friends as I read it again five years into my retirement. While the book is based on the community of Chapel Hollow in the Morgan Branch Valley of Tennessee, I am always transported back into the book each time I visit Cades Cove just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee and near the town of Townsend where the television story based on this book was filmed. The cabins there are much as I picture those belonging to the book's characters.

I highly recommend this book to all readers, no matter what genre one usually prefers to read in. This timeless classic is too good to miss, and will live in your heart for years to come.

I am grateful to NetGalley and Evergreen Farm an imprint of Gilead Publishing for providing me with a copy of Christy in exchange for my honest opinion. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review and received no monetary compensation. ( )

I loved the book all the way through until the very end...and then I was thinking, "What? That's it? That's the ending?" You have to make so many assumptions in that last line of the book. I hated the ending so much that it skewed my perception of the entire book. :( ( )