A Mended Vessel

A moving memoir of the life of a spirited girl in the Appalachian mountains in the 1930s. Traumatized by a brutal assault, Pearl is rescued by her grandmother, a healer who shows the child the fierce beauty of the mountain fastness, its people and creatures. Pearl leaves at age 13, to make her way in a world in the throes of the Great Depression. A Mended Vessel chronicles Pearl's trials and adventures, from laying out the dead, to cooking in a logging camp, to confronting the Ku Klux Klan. She boldly tells of impetuous choices and audacious affairs, with poignant details of times and places past. At 87, Pearl McCullough is finally free to reveal the abuse and loss, the violence and valor that tore her very soul and to speak for countless women who have never been heard.