The Ballad of Tom Dooley
A Ballad Novel
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- $9.900
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- $9.900
Descripción editorial
The Ballad of Tom Dooley is a literary triumph—what began as a fictional re-telling of the historical account of one of the most famous mountain ballads of all time became an astonishing revelation of the real culprit responsible for the murder of Laura Foster
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley…The folk song, made famous by the Kingston Trio, recounts a tragedy in the North Carolina mountains after the Civil War. Laura Foster, a simple country girl, was murdered and her lover Tom Dula was hanged for the crime. The sensational elements in the case attracted national attention: a man and his beautiful, married lover accused of murdering the other-woman; the former governor of North Carolina spearheading the defense; and a noble gesture from the prisoner on the eve of his execution, saving the woman he really loved.
With the help of historians, lawyers, and researchers, Sharyn McCrumb visited the actual sites, studied the legal evidence, and uncovered a missing piece of the story that will shock those who think they already know what happened—and may also bring belated justice to an innocent man. What seemed at first to be a sordid tale of adultery and betrayal was transformed by the new discoveries into an Appalachian Wuthering Heights. Tom Dula and Ann Melton had a profound romance spoiled by the machinations of their servant, Pauline Foster.
Bringing to life the star-crossed lovers of this mountain tragedy, Sharyn McCrumb gifts understanding and compassion to her compelling tales of Appalachia, and solidifies her status as one of today's great Southern writers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her latest "Ballad Novel," McCrumb (The Devil Amongst the Lawyers) delves into the history of the song made popular by the Kingston Trio. It's 1866 and no one in the mountains of North Carolina has been left unscarred by the Civil War. This includes the scores of walking wounded Rebel soldiers back from the war, but also the women they left behind, like Pauline Foster, whose encounters with soldiers and drifters have left her with a death sentence in the form of syphilis, a disease that figures prominently among the story's players. Bitter and envious of her beautiful cousin Ann Melton, Pauline nevertheless takes a job as Ann's housemaid while undergoing treatment nearby. Pauline sees patterns and understands connections that no one else sees, and she manufactures drama for her own ends with tragic results. She is soon intimately involved in the romantic and sexual entanglements of Ann; Ann's husband, James, who Ann married for stability; Ann's lover Tom Dula, her passion from the time they were children; and the women's other cousin, Laura Foster, whose trysts with Tom lead to her murder. Narrated by Pauline and by Zebulon Vance, the former Confederate governor who defended Tom Dula in court, McCrumb's tale is impeccably researched. At times the deliberate accounting of facts and biography does more to show off that research than it does to advance the story, but McCrumb's novel casts light on the often bleak context surrounding characters who have become legend.
