Title: Christy
Author: Catherine Marshall
ISBN: 978-1-68370-132-3
Even though I’ve readthis at least once and thought twice before, I remembered almost noneof it.
I’ve been on a Christy kick ever since a trip to theAppalachians, listening to this, reading the novellas for kids thatI’ve just discovered, and also re-watching the 1990s TV miniseries.
The characters are lovable, and all versions are quite episodic, sothey lend themselves well to a series.
The story follows ChristyHuddleston, a 19-year-old in the year 1912, who felt after a ‘pitch’at church that God had called her to be a teacher in the backwoods ofCutter Gap in the Great Smoky Mountains.
It’s told as a framestory, beginning with what I gather is the author speaking to hermother–the real-life “Christy” I just discovered.
However,Catherine Marshall’s mother was named Lenore. (The intro to thenovel was fascinating, to hear Catherine Marshall’s son recount howhis grandmother Lenore reacted to the dramatization of her own life!).
A considerable percentage was based on life, but it was stilldecidedly fictionalized in some key points, hence the namechange.
Cutter Gap is the poorest of poor areas, where childrenand adults alike go without shoes even in the snow, and entirefamilies live in single-room cabins covered in filth.
The missionhouse where Christy lives is large and clean, though sparse.Christy’s first introduction to these people is an accident thatrequires the only doctor in the cove, Doctor Neil MacNeill, toperform brain surgery on a crowded cabin’s kitchen table.
Fromthere, Christy has several moments of self-doubt: she’s nevertaught before, and she has nearly seventy students of all ages tocontend with.
Some students perform cruel pranks on others andherself, and she is caught up in generational mountain feuds. But shefalls in love with the children and finds her purpose in them.
Theother three supporting characters are David, the preacher, Miss AliceHenderson, a fellow missionary, and Doctor MacNeill. David is set upearly on as Christy’s primary love interest.
He remains so for muchof the book, but on this reading, he struck me as not quite aPharisee but perhaps a pretender. His faith seemed paper-thin, but hewas afraid to let anyone know it and seemed frightened to discover ithimself. Doctor MacNeill is a prominent rival for Christy’saffections in the novellas and the TV series, but less so in thenovel for most of the book; instead, he infuriates her more than notin the novel.
He’s openly non-Christian and challenges Christy’sbeliefs, which drives her to Miss Alice for answers. Miss Alice isthe only one in the story with a deep and abiding faiththroughout–her understanding of God is that
He is always good, Hewants His children to have joy, and the promises of scripture arethere for the taking. Still, they don’t come to pass automatically.
She mentors Christy such that she eventually finds the answers toNeil’s questions.
The novel has far more adult themes than thenovellas do; key characters died in the novel version, to mysurprise, and the blood feud between a few mountain families has sometragic and dark results.
But this is the only one written byCatherine Marshall, I learned–everything else was just based on herwork. She was an excellent writer.