Cataloochee (Caldwell)

Cataloochee 
Wayne Caldwell, 2007
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812973730


Summary
Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post-Civil War saga of three generations of families—their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.

Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when “where you was born was where God wanted you,” the Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune.

Never one to pass on opportunity, Ezra Banks, an ambitious young man seeking some land of his own, arrives in Cataloochee in the 1880s. His first order of business is to marry a Carter girl, Hannah, the daughter of the valley’s largest landowner. From there Ezra’s brood grows, as do those of the Carters and the Wrights. With hard work and determination, the burgeouning community transforms wilderness into home, to be passed on through generations.

But the idyll is not to last, nor to be inherited: The government takes steps to relocate folks to make room for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and tragedy will touch one of the clans in a single, unimaginable act. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Where—Asheville, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; M.A.,
   Appalachian State; University; Ph.D., Duke University
• Currently—lives near Asheville, North Carolina


Wayne Caldwell was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Appalachian State University, and Duke University. He has taught at North Carolina Central University and at Union College in Schenectady, New York.  

Caldwell began writing fiction in the late 1990s. He has published four short stories and a poem, and won two short story prizes. Cataloochee, his first novel, brings to life a community’s historic struggles and close kinships over a span of six decades. Full of humor, darkness, beauty, and wisdom, Cataloochee is a classic novel of place and family

Caldwell lives near Asheville with his wife, Mary. They have two sons. (Adapted from the publisher and from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Ramsey Library Special Collections.)

Book Reviews
In these days of strip malls and clogged highways, you can appreciate the government’s decision [to form the Great Smoky Mountains National Park]. But thanks to Caldwell’s skillful evocation, you’ll also be touched by the sense of loss that the people of this valley feel.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Caldwell fully captures the sense of the people, the time and the place as he writes of a vanished community and way of life.
The Denver Post


A vast, old-fashioned Southern tale...Caldwell writes with lyricism, precision, a hint of the Gothic, and a sweet underlying humor that together make his long story crackle and move. He captures the physical look and the rich language of this breathtaking mountainous country, and puts before us vivid new versions of an American type—hard, stoic, at home in isolation, courageous, pious, and strong—that is still an essential component of how we see ourselves. Every moment of the story feels both generous and true.
Oprah Magazine


The first time Ezra Banks sees the promised land called Cataloochee is when he runs away at age 14 and joins the Confederate army. So begins first-time novelist Caldwell's rambling account of life in the western mountains of North Carolina from 1864 to 1928. Land-poor Ezra returns to Cataloochee in 1880, marries Hannah Carter of the land-rich Carter family, takes over some of her father's property and goes on to raise a family and acquire more land, making him one of the wealthiest men in Cataloochee. But cantankerous Ezra is mean as a snake when he's drunk (and only slightly less when sober), earning him the community's enmity. The diffuse narrative moseys from one folksy yarn to the next about the fates of various members of the Carter/Banks clan. Late in the novel, conflict arrives in the form of the government's appropriation of Cataloochee to make way for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Then, Ezra, 78 and as irascible as ever, is shot to death, and his eldest son, Zeb, is charged with his murder. The ensuing trial is as singular as Cataloochee itself. A meandering and diverting collection of tangential yarns, Caldwell's debut will find a spot on many readers' shelves near Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Set in the reclusive mountains of North Carolina, Caldwell's rootsy first novel follows the small triumphs and tragedies of three families from the Civil War to 1928, when the area was absorbed into the new Smoky Mountains National Park. Keeping track of four generations of Carters, Banks, and Wrights, with their bountiful legions of offspring, would be a chore if not for Caldwell's deft touch, indelibly detailing characters even if their particular branch of the family tree only rustles free to offer a momentary glimpse into the loves, lives, and deaths of these hardscrabble folk. That the central conflict of the novel—a patricide—does not arise until well near the end speaks to the strength of the rest of this sprawling saga, wherein moments of inspired tenderness abut moments of unspeakable vileness, where friend and foe alike are worked deep into the folds of kith and kin. Throughout, Caldwell's prose weathers the bountiful yet perilous land with the measured resolve of an old folk balladeer, without resorting to sentiment or stereotype. Greil Marcus coined the term "old, weird America" in reference to the sometimes eerie, always peculiar Appalachian songs recorded by Harry Smith; this, then, is a novel about the folk who lived out their songs in that older, weirder America.—Ian Chipman
Booklist


Though Wayne Caldwell didn’t start writing until he turned 50, the debut novelist is now working on the sequel to his historical novel Cataloochee, which enters on fearsome patriarch Ezra Banks and portrays 60 years of a real-life community that once existed in rural North Carolina. The book features incredibly true-to-life, well-drawn characters, the “kind of people,” that “the reader misses when the last page is turned." "I hope people get a sense that we have lost this place and enjoy my re-creation,” says the author. “I became interested in Cataloochee the first time I went there. It was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. I wrote a short story about my grandfather, which won a prize, and that started me forward.” To boost the book’s authenticity, the author revisited the setting with a Cataloochee native. “My cousin Raymond Caldwell was born there and had vivid memories of living there,” he says. “We would go hiking, and he could point out the cedar tree that used to be in someone’s front yard.” Caldwell also collected family stories and country lore to spin into his narrative. “I spent a lot of time with older folks like my wife’s great-uncle and those informed the book greatly,” he says. The sequel will follow the diaspora of Cataloochee’s denizens as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park comes into being in the 1930s.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get you started.

1. Wayne Caldwell has said that he admires William Faulkner and Mark Twain, two authors whose works are "deadly serious" yet still contain a "bunch of belly laughs. Caldwell goes on to say, "I see no reason for a novel to be grim for 300 pages." What episodes strike you as particularly funny. What does the inclusion of humor add to Cataloochee?

2. One of the central concerns of the work is the loss of Eden: how civilization intrudes into an idyllic, close-knit, isolated community. In what way does Cataloochee call into question the idea of progress? Are we to feel sadness for the loss of a uniquely American way of life? This story took place in the two previous centuries. Is there a corollary "loss of eden" taking place in the 21st century?

3. Talk about how the different generations in Cataloochee viewed the government's relocation project and creation of a national park? Is the benefit we might feel today for the park worth the sense of loss felt by residents 80 years ago?

3. In the very first chapter, Ezra hears a Baptist preacher read from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 12, wherein God says to the rich man who wishs to store up his wealth,

Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall these things be, which thou has provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

How does this message echo throughout the book, especially, as regards Ezra?

4. The characters in this book often invite others to "pull up a chair and set awhile." Some readers have suggested that the invitation is for us, as well—that Caldwell has the ability to pull readers into the lives of all the characters. Do you feel that way, and if so, how does Caldwell, as a writer, accomplish that? If you don't feel invited in, why not?

5. The book begins, in the prologue, with the sound of six shots, heralding the death of Ezra. What else do those shots herald, metaphoriclly speaking? Also, of course, discuss Jeb's trial and outcome.

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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