Review: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

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The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's not much I can add to the glowing reviews, but I was thoroughly engrossed in the world-building of this Appalachia set Depression-era novel. Women's fiction in the best sense of the word, it brings to life a world of determined women, starving families, medical mysteries, and the healing properties of the written word.

Cussy--nicknamed "Bluet" for the color of her skin--is one of the last of the blue people of Kentucky, families affected by a recessive gene that created a population of blue-skinned offspring. Outcast, shunned, attacked, and under the law treated as second class "coloreds" by their communities. Even when medical science offers an explanation and a treatment, Bluet is still an outcast and subject to hatred and miscegenation laws.

But she perseveres, taking a job as a Packhorse Librarian, women who under the WPA of the Roosevelt administration were paid to carry books and periodicals to isolated homesteads.

Anyone who loves books, reading, and public libraries will appreciate Bluet's determination and commitment. There are passages that are hard to read, children starving to death while others feast, hatreds based on fear of what's different, and sexual and physical abuse. Yet Bluet is a heroine in her time, and the stories of these brave women and a few men who carried the books are well worth a read.

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