The Book Woman Of Troublesome Creek

 

Life is hard in the Kentucky mountains.  There are few jobs except the coal mine where men are overworked and unprotected from the constant danger of cave-ins.  Most get by with farming where they can and hunting and gathering.  It is not unusual for death to come by starvation, especially for children.  

Cussy Mary Carter knows about this.  She lives with her father outside the only town.  He works in the mines and is slowly dying of lung disease from his job.  She has a job as well; delivering books to the school and farms of the area.  She and her father are treated as outsiders because they have a strange condition that makes their skin blue.  They are treated as non-whites and discriminated against as are the few black residents.  

Cussy Mary loves to read and knows that books are as important as anything else to the people of the area.  She especially wants the children to hear books to know that there is something else out there and to entertain them.  But she is condemned by the local preacher as being God cursed and that those who deal with her are the same.  Regardless of that and how she is treated in town, Mary gets on her mule every day and takes books to those who want to learn.  She also takes food when she has it and newspapers and magazines full of suggestions on how to run a household.  

This novel is based on the true Blue People of Kentucky and on the true book express in the Kentucky mountains.  The book has garnered much praise in various media outlets.  More of the book is devoted to the discussion of the Blue People than the book delivery service.  I didn't know about these people who can trace the condition, which is a blood enzyme issue, back to one ancestor who migrated to the hills from France.  Cussy Mary and her father believe that she is the last of the Blue People.  Readers will be awed by the realization of how hard life was for people in this time and place and fascinated by Cussy Mary and her family.  This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction.