Come Go Home with Me: Stories by Sheila Kay Adams

By Sheila Kay Adams

Book Overview

Sheila Adams has been performing Appalachian ballads and telling stories for over twenty years. A native of Madison County, North Carolina, she was introduced to the tale-telling tradition by her great-aunt 'Granny, ' well-known balladeer Dellie Chandler Norton. This collection of Adams's stories provides a rare portrait of a distinctive mountain community and charts the development of an artist's unique voice. The tales range from stories of heroic, sometimes fierce, mountain settlers to the comic adventures of local drifters and tricksters, from magical childhood encounters to adult rites of passage. We meet Bertha and the snake handlers, local preacher Manassey Fender (who 'looked like a pencil with a burr haircut, in a suit'), and Adams's beloved grandfather Breaddaddy, who taught her about life and death with an enchanting graveyard dance. But perhaps the most powerful character depicted here is 'Granny, ' whom Adams calls 'the most exciting person I have ever known and the best teacher I would ever have.' By weaving these remembrances into her stories, Adams both preserves and extends a rich artistic heritage.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807845361
• ISBN13: 9780807845363
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

tWONDERFUL MEMORIES

The Publishers Weekley reviewer called this book hokey. They obviously had absolutely no knowledge of Southern Mountain life past or present. The author is a noted storyteller, and this book is a wonderful presentation of Southern stories,songs and real life. I have met Sheila Kay Adams and have heard her storytelling and songs. Reviewers should not attempt to review that of which they have absolutely no knowledge. ELEANOR J, MILLER

An Authentic Appalachian Voice

The author, Sheila Kay Adams, was a consultant for the film Songcatcher. She is responsible for the authenticity of the accents, diction, and singing style of the characters in the movie. So often mountain people are put down as "hokey," ignorant, or trivial. In these stories they reveal their moral strength, their poetic way of expressing themselves, and their perseverance in a challenging environment. Their humor and dignity raise them far above the stereotypes of Snuffy Smith and Li'l Abner. The story of Sheila, as a small girl, and her grandmother having a zen-like moment with a flock of migrating Monarch butterflies is so full of magic, it is worth the price of the book alone.

Great storytelling

This is a collection of stories, all true, about Sheila Kay Adams' childhood in the kind of North Carolina mountain community that is fading fast, if it hasn't already disappeared. Her warm voice, fine sense of comic writing, sharply-drawn characters, and lovely descriptions all contribute to a collection that is simply but elegantly conceived. The snapshots of life presented here--tragic, hilarious, wondrous--are engaging and moving. It's the kind of book you'll return to. Highly, highly recommended.

Come Go Home With Me

Loved this book. Ms. Adams writes just like she talks. The stories she tells are wonderful. The story of Bertha and the snake handlers is priceless. If you are looking for a good book to share with ever member of the family, as I have, this is the book.

Mountain Tales of real life adventures.

I love this book and have used it to read to nursing home folks. They have enjoyed these often outlandish tales as much as I. True life is often better than fiction they say, and I would agree. All short but entertaining tales.