The King of Cherokee Creek

Great Read!

For The King of Cherokee Creek, Marian Allen has written an anthology mostly about the town of Cherokee Creek and its inhabitants. The town is a bit of our nation most people will recognize and feel comfortable with. But in this slice of Americana, stories run deep, people are not as we expect. The author opens our eyes to possibilities. In our eternal need to categorize everything, I would place this anthology on the magical realism of everyday life shelf. Or maybe in the just plain good fun reading section.

Marian Allen evokes the characters in her story with an easy but incisive phrase or two. For example, “She had never seen her lift her feet except to step onto or over something but the woman shuffled faster than a pig could trot.”

It’s a lovely phrase.

There are more thankfully, though the author is restrained and subtle in her use, allowing the narrative and plot to take center stage.

Her dialogue of this midwest town is authentic. Well, authentic enough for me to think that is how people speak there. For all I know, people in small midwest towns speak Eskimo.

You’ll like the characters you meet here, care for their trials and tribulations, and be intrigued by the thin thread of magic weaving through each of the stories. And you get a bonus story at the end that’s very funny.

Buy it, read it, enjoy it, and hope that Marian Allen will continue to tell us the stories of Cherokee Creek and its King. Looking forward to hearing more from Bud.