Now in its 41st printing, this classic novel, set during and after the divided loyalties of the Civil War in the Southern mountains, describes Lydia McQueen's efforts to overcome grave challenges, live her best life, and bring a school to her community. This quest involves the challenges of the natural world and is entangled with the desires and ambitions of all the novel's diverse characters - including a clan of outcasts - and promises to resolve mysteries that go back to the days of the war.
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Now in its 41st printing, this classic novel, set during and after the divided loyalties of the Civil War in the Southern mountains, describes Lydia McQueen's efforts to overcome grave challenges, live her best life, and bring a school to her community. This quest involves the challenges of the natural world and is entangled with the desires and ambitions of all the novel's diverse characters - including a clan of outcasts - and promises to resolve mysteries that go back to the days of the war.
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Seller's Description:
The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fair. Avon. Third Printing, 1971. Mass Market Paperback. 256 pages. Some surface and edge wear to cover. Pages are good. -Disclaimer: May have a different cover image than stock photos shows, as well as being a different edition/printing, unless otherwise stated. Please contact us if you're looking for one of these specifically. Your order will ship with FREE Delivery Confirmation (Tracking). We are a family business, and your satisfaction is our goal!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
The book opens with the main character, Lydia Moore, soon to be the young bride of Mark McQueen, in the rugged and sparsely populated wilderness of Western North Carolina just prior to the War Between the States. We follow the ebb and flow of her life, when her family is divided just as the nation is divided, through her efforts to rebuild her family and community during the reconstruction period and beyond.
Ms. Dykeman's character, Lydia, is a beautifully written example of today's coinage of the term "steel magnolia" of how one woman's care for nature's bounty and care for future generations can be accomplished by sheer will, determination, and an unselfish love.
The old adage, "a tall woman cast a long shadow," shows in Lydia that one person casts a long shawdow desprite her all too short life.
Following are some quotes from Ms. Dykeman's "The Tall Woman" that are especially poingant for me and also illustrates her ability to make prose into a poem:
"Fresh, sweet smells of late spring rode on the gentle wind. Bees used the air like a giant room. Above her and beyond her and all around, the mountains were stirring with life, thrusting up shoots and leaves and blossoms, feeding roots, soaking up pockets of spring rain for dry times ahead, yeilding small animals that had burrowed away for winter. Lydia felt the surge of life----as she had felt it in previous springs. No matter who came or went, what crops were planted or unplanted, who was meted justice or injustice, this would always return. She felt as small as an insect curled in the leaf at her foot, knowing that all of this went forward without knowledge of her. And yet she felt large, too, as great and grand as the green peak of the mountain looming above her because she was a part of it all. She was here and now and alive!"
"Water is a living thing: it is life itself. In it life began. As a river is born deep inside the earth in springs that gather into streams and join to become a river, so people's lives gather and into families and communities and become part of the river of history."
