Both stories are very interesting and blend well together. Part of this novel is a love story, centering on a young girl, June Tolliver & her love interest John Hale, the "furriner." The other side of this novel focuses on what life is like for the "mountain people" and the effects of the coal mining boom, and the influx of foreigners into their way of life. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is really two stories in one. Not being from the region that the Trail of the Lonesome Pine is written about, I was definitely reading it from a "furriner" point of view. The entrance of this "furriner" will change June's life forever. When John Hale enters the Tolliver/Falin territory, June is immediately drawn to him. A town is blossoming in Big Stone Gap Virginia.and the Trail of the Lonesome Pine connects the town with Lonesome Cove, home of the Tolliver family, and a pretty little mountain girl named June. The story begins as life in the mountains is beginning to al mining is starting to boom, and the oustide world is creeping into the simple ways of mountain life. At the heart of this novel are the Tolliver & Falin families, who have been in a feud with one another for as far back as anyone can remember. It is a story of love, as well as change. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine takes place in the Kentucky mountains, bordering Big Stone Gap, Virginia. I have since ordered and read the other two of Fox's Appalachia "trilogy". He served with distinction as a war correspondent with the Rough Riders in Cuba and reported from the Russo-Japanese War for Scribner's Magazine. If you choose to read The Trail of the Lonesome Pine web-search the author, he was no pilgrim.
The author John Fox Jr 1862-1919 unfortunately passed too soon - I believe he had some good stories still to be told. What it does provide the reader a beautiful protracted love story, a snapshot of Appalachia culture and a description of the introduction of an economic way of life that remains with parts of Appalachia today. After a careful second reading I believe The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is the most pleasing and interesting novel I have ever read! This novel does not offer raw language, descriptive sex or blood & guts violence. The search results directed me to Amazon & Barnes & Nobel, both electronic versions were priced the same. A couple months ago I web-searched the novel's title to see if I could obtain a copy.
Some parts of the story stuck with me through the years. I first read this novel forty-five years ago. The boom and bust that coal mining and iron smelting brought to these hills left scars on the land and on the souls of the people who inhabited it. At times it makes about as much sense as the blood feuds it describes. While away at school the lass did not write home because there was no one at home who could read. Progress means finding a once pristine brook polluted with sawdust and coal dust. Once more we see a girl sent away to town for schooling returning to the hoggish manners of her chauvinist male relatives and finding it off-putting. Another contrast is that between the concept of hospitality and the xenophobia that is so apparent. The arcadian setting is dramatically at odds with the blight that coal mining, railroads, and company towns, that is about to descend on these backwoods people, will bring. For those unfamiliar with Appalachia and whose only contact with hill-billy lifestyle is the more sedate The Waltons the milieu described here is terra incognita.
#THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE BOOK SUMMARY SERIES#
More recently neighbouring Harlan County is the setting for the 5-season TV series Justified.
There really is a place on the Virginia/Kentucky Border called Big Stone Gap-I always thought it was fictitious. This one supposedly began when one school boy made fun of another’s patched jeans. New riders of the purple sage concert history.We’ve all heard about the Hatfields and the McCoys and a similar feud serves as background for this tale set at the turn of the Nineteenth Century.