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    The Road from Gap Creek
    The Road from Gap Creek
    The Road from Gap Creek
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Road from Gap Creek

    Written by Robert Morgan

    Narrated by Emma Galvin

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When Gap Creek was published in 1999, it became an instant national bestseller, attracting hundreds of thousands of readers to the story of a marriage begun with love and hope at the turn of the twentieth century. Set in the Appalachian South, it followed Julie and Hank Richards as they struggled through the first year and a half of their union. But what of the years following? What did the future hold for these memorable characters?The Road to Gap Creek answers those questions, as Robert Morgan takes us back into the lives of Julie and Hank as well as their children, seen through the eyes of their youngest daughter, Annie. Through Annie we watch the four Richards children create their own histories, lives that include both triumph and hardship in the face of the Great Depression and World War II. Far more than a sequel, The Road from Gap Creek is a moving and indelible portrait of people and their world in a time of unprecedented change, an American story told by one of the country's most acclaimed writers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateAug 27, 2013
    ISBN9781622312344
    The Road from Gap Creek
    Author

    Robert Morgan

    Robert Morgan is a poet, novelist, and biographer. His most recent book is Boone: A Biography (2007), winner of the Kentucky Literary Award and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as an honorary degree from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since 1971 he has taught at Cornell University, where he is now Kappa Alpha

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    Reviews for The Road from Gap Creek

    4/5

    132 ratings50 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I want to thank Algonquin Books for following through on this early reviewer book which took many months to actually arrive. The wait was worth it. Written in North Carolina mountain vernacular this book took a while to get into. Once the language became familiar it flowed like I had been using it my whole life. This book is story telling at its finest and it gives a transparent window into rural life before and during the second world war. I will be going back to reread Gap Creek since I had forgotten much of its character development which is built upon in this sequel.
    • 4/5

      Return to gap creek by Robert Morgan
      (Scribd book )

      This book was the continuation of gap creek and to get the most out of the novels. Read this one before the truest pleasure. I read that one after gap creek and it would have made a lot more sense if I’d only read this one firstly. Basically this book shows the transition in families as older people need more care and their children must go from depending on their parents to taking care of them. The backdrop is world war 2. very insightful read
      Would i buy this book?Maybe
    • 4/5
      I did not read the first book Gap Creek, but I had heard such wonderful things about it that when I saw this sequel I was very happy to be able to read it. Whether that was help or hindrance I don't know. The book was very evocative of place and time and I did feel myself a part of the family that Mr. Morgan has created. This was Annie's story and she was the main focus even as the family tries to recover from a devastating loss. He uses the vernacular of the locals and it suits the book but it can be a little wearing on the reader.I truly enjoyed reading Road from Gap Creek and will now seek out the first book to get the foundation for this house.
    • 5/5
      Like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn meets Appalachia in many ways. There is a coming of age element, the hardships of life contrasted with what makes it beautiful, and the thoughtful, observant, almost meandering way of telling a story. I'm partial to books set in the mountains, as they speak of home to me, and the tenor of this book is spot on. I remember liking Gap Creek way back when, but don't remember much about it. Thankfully, The Road from Gap Creek stands alone. The anecdotes that are almost too strange to be fiction made me feel like I was spending time with an old friend rather than simply reading a story.
    • 4/5
      This is not a written chronologically. It is like someone wrote a diary and the pages were torn out and mixed up. Each chapter is an incident or event in the narrators life. It is interesting, funny and sad.
    • 2/5
      I did not enjoy this book as much as I did the first one. It seemed very disjointed to me and left out too many details of the main character's earlier years.
    • 3/5
      When I read Gap Creek maybe 10 years ago (maybe more!) I loved it. I had been reading the Oprah book club series at that time and had not been disappointed. I have been reading Return to Gap Creek off and on for about two months. It was very easy to do because the narrative was disjointed. Not linear but skipping around from memory to memory. I found it sad and wondered why I loved the first book so much and looked for clues in the second. I think I will go back and skim the first book for those clues.
    • 4/5
      The Road from Gap Creek was a finely crafted narrative about hardship and loss in depression era America and WWII. The family live in a hardscrabble landscape in the Appalachians, and try to make ends meet and build a life for themselves, through blinding loss and devastation. I found the writing very compelling and the characters so well described that they live in my head still, even after finishing the novel. I am interested in that area of America - the Blue Ridge Mountains - and in the challenges of the depression era, so I found the book interesting from an historical perspective as well. I will have to go back and read the first Gap Creek I think to complete my picture of this family's life. All in all I enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend it!
    • 3/5
      When we left Hank and Julie at the end of Gap Creek (published in 2000), they were leaving Gap Creek and heading back up the mountain to begin anew. Having survived a very rough first year of marriage, they were full of hope and love and the future seemed bright. And, indeed, the future does seem to have been good to them. In this sequel, narrated by Annie, one of their daughters, some 25 years after the events in Gap Creek, Hank and Julie have created a family, are financially stable, and overall seem to have been doing well in the years since we last saw them. How did they get there? Don't ask me.Here is what we learn about those years: after leaving Gap Creek, Hank and Julie at some point moved back there, and then left again, when Annie was about 5 years old; Hank was able to find steady work in the '20s by building summer cottages for rich people; with steady work, he gained confidence; and they have 4 children. Why did they return to Gap Creek? Why did they leave again? Dunno. I suppose the stories must not be very interesting, since the only family lore Annie seems to know are things that happened when her parents were newlyweds - in other words, stories we already know if we read Gap Creek. A sequel doesn't have to describe every detail that we've missed in the lives of the characters, but it's almost as though Morgan's imagination just totally failed him and he just doesn't know what happened to his characters in those 25 years. In which case, quite frankly, this book needed a different title, because the road from Gap Creek is not at all the story it tells.That being said, the writing is, of course, beautiful and evocative of Appalachia in the late 1930s and into WWII. As a stand-alone book, this would have been a lovely read. As a sequel, it just doesn't hold up.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. "The Road From Gap Creek" by Robert Morgan is a compelling read written in the vernacular of a young southern girl.Morgan writes about what it is like to a a southern North Carolina, baptist, rural family living through ordinary family events and hardships in the 30's and 40's. As well the family deals with The Great Depression, and losing a son and brother in WWII.Morgan's characters Annie , her mama and father, Troy and the dog Old Pat seem to be real people and the reader really gets to know them, gets to like them and care for them. Morgan obviously loves these people of Green River and the landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I did not read "Gap Creek". Now I would like to.
    • 3/5
      This book centered on an interesting concept, but the writing fell flat. The narrator, Annie, tells a simple, but moving story of life in the North Carolina mountains during World War II and the Great Depression. The reader follows Annie and her family and friends through decades of hard times and their struggles to maintain an existence. Annie starts the tale as a young girl living in a simple cabin but the story quickly ends when Annie is around 30. Annie returns many times to certain events and the reader begins to think she is a feeble old woman who cannot remember what part of the story she has already told. The jumping back and forth from the different times did not work well. Many events focused on a younger brother, Troy, and his dog, Old Pat. Morgan attempted to write the language as the people, but the nuances were not captured. As usual, I like to learn something new, which I did. I learned about the “dog days of summer”.
    • 5/5
      The Road from Gap Creek is a sequel to Robert Morgan's Gap Creek, which I read when it first came out years ago. I remember being somewhat disappointed in it, but this new novel does not disappoint in the least. Narrator Annie Richards tells the story of her family's life in their new home after they left Gap Creek. While the story begins with the notification of the death of the youngest member of the family, Troy, who was fighting in World War II, it covers a wide time span. The novel is not linear but moves fluidly forward and backward in time. The setting is in the mountains of North Carolina, near the South Carolina border. If the reader has read Gap Creek, then the characters will be familiar, but there is no need to have read the first novel in order to enjoy this one. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I thought that Robert Morgan captured the spirit of Appalachia and the people who lived there during this time period. The language that he used was well done and didn't detract from the story. The story was told in a time of great change in this area - from the Depression through the end of WWII and this family went through many changes. I had not read GAP CREEK when I read this book but plan to go back and read GAP CREEK and then re-read THE ROAD FROM GAP CREEK. Great book!
    • 5/5
      This story is the sequel to Gap Creek, told by the viewpoint of Hank and Julie's daughter Annie. The story opens as they receive the news that the youngest son of the family, Troy, has been killed in action overseas. As the family deals with their loss, Annie reflects back over the years since her family left Gap Creek,, from the 1920's, throughout the Great Depression, and the early years of World War II, and how the events of history touched their lives in the Appalachian region of North Carolina.Even though this is a sequel, it totally works as a stand alone story, but I highly recommend reading Gap Creek first, the story of the early years of Hank and Julie's marriage, for a richer reading experience.I really enjoyed this story; many of the characters were based on people in the authors own family, and the love he had for his parents and grandparents really shine through in this story with the richly drawn characters.I won a free paperback copy of this book from Library Thing; I was not required to give it a positive review, only an honest one, but I can honestly say, this book is awesome!
    • 4/5
      After having LOVED Gap Creek, I was excited to read about the continued lives of the young married couple. I was not disappointed. It read like a memoir. Loved it. If you liked Gap Creek, then you will enjoy this as well
    • 5/5
      Excellent read!! Robert Morgan is my new favorite author. His character Annie, gives rich depth and life to the characters she is involved with. I read Gap Creek a few years ago and remember her mother’s storytelling and they are not much different from each other, other than Annie is a little bit more spirited. She watches and endures much suffering in her family and friends, but still has a sense of endurance and peace. She was an observer and gained wisdom from these observations. Although she was married to a preacher and her mama and papa were faithful Christians, she seemed to have a question about her faith. One of her observations in particular that really struck me was after her brother Troy passed on in the war:The preacher stepped into the kitchen but didn’t set down. “I just came to say how awful sorry I am,” he said, holding his hat in front of him. “Won’t you have a sweet tater?” I said. Last thing I wanted to do was discuss Troy’s death with the preacher. And I guess mom and papa felt the same way. For when a preacher comes to comfort you it always makes you feel worser. I don’t know why that is, but a preacher’s kind words make you feel more miserable. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, being married to preacher. But a preacher’s words always seem faraway. You know what he’s going to say and what he has to say. And somehow the fact that he goes ahead and says them makes you even sadder. For the preacher will say God’s ways are mysterious and beyond our understanding. What seems unbearable to humans must be part of a plan. If something bad is an accident it’s bad, but if it’s part of a plan that’s much worse. I’ve never understood why preachers think that is comforting. They make you feel so hopeless and stupid. For they remind you there’s nothing you can do. Your suffering is all part of God’s plan. You don’t have control over nothing, no matter what you do. It makes you feel weak and sick in your bones, the way a bad fever does. Robert Morgan does a fantastic job of describing the surroundings of her home, it is obvious that he is familiar with the Appalachians. I look forward to reading more of his books!
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It's the first of Robert Morgan's that I've read, but now I plan to read more of him. It's beautifully written with vivid imagery and description. I loved that it takes place in Apallacia. I recommend it highly. Check it out.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book although not as much as Gap Creek which I read years ago. There is no climax and no denouement, just a series of memories told by Annie as she recalls the hardships and joys faced during the Great Depression and WWII. Because the memories were not in chronological order, it was difficult for me to glean her age at the time of the memory. Was she 13 or 27? Only rarely did I find out and it was a mental stumbling block for me in an otherwise gentle, compelling novel.
    • 4/5
      I loved the book Gap Creek and had just finished it before starting this one. I felt like it didn't seem to flow very easily into the new setting and characters. There was too much going back and forth from memories. Annie, the daughter of Julie and Hank, is the storyteller and even though the beginning starts with very little action, by the time I was half way thru it, I couldn't put it down. This book is a very good description of the times and places of our country's history. I received this book free for a review. And because our small town library does not have it, I'm donating it to them. Thanks, Library Thing.
    • 4/5
      This is a charming story of a hard working family in the 1930's and 1940's as told by the daughter of the main character from Gap Creek. There were many flashbacks to different times through their lives - some big moments, others were happenings that shaped the characters. At times the story was a little slow - there's no great mystery or puzzle to be solved - just great storytelling. So stick with it, the last few chapters make it all worthwhile.
    • 5/5
      I wasn’t sure this book was going to stand up to Morgan’s previous novels, “Gap Creek” and “This Rock,” but I was pleasantly surprised. The story is told through the eyes of the daughter, Annie. Annie tells the history of the family from the time they moved from Gap Creek and the hard life they lived in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. I read “Gap Creek” many years ago didn’t remember a whole lot about the characters, but I did remember “This Rock” (my favorite) and was very happy to find characters Muir and Moody Powell in this book too. Even though this is a sequel, I don’t think it is necessary to have read “Gap Creek” to enjoy this book. What really boosted the ratings of this book for me was how authentic the voices of the characters are. It struck me when I was reading that it would take someone who knows this region, who knows people just like this to be able to capture the personalities so throughly. Morgan really has a gift for getting into the head of his characters. My rating is not so much for the story, but for the great writing and authenticity of the characters. I would rate this book 4.5 stars.I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through Library Thing in exchange for a review.
    • 5/5
      This was another wonderful book about Gap Creek. In the first book I fell in love with the characters and this book makes you fall in love all over again with the next generation. It was neat to see what struggles families in Appalachia went through in the 30s and 40s and the story was so well told you felt you were there with them. We thought the depression was bad in most areas but there is a whole new spin when you have a depression in an already depressed area. What a great read. I am happy to have read both books.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book after I got over feeling like it was just a collection of stories about the main character's childhood and young adult years. There seemed to be more importance placed on her brother's dog than on her brother, which I thought was odd because her memories should have been geared toward her brother since he had recently passed away.The book settles into a more continuous story about 3/4 of the way through which made it more enjoyable for me.
    • 2/5
      I thought I had read Morgan's previous novel, "Gap Creek," but I must be mistaken, because I would not have read this one. I must have confused it with a similar title. Don't get me wrong. Love the genre, love dogs. Hated the name 'Old Pat'. Found the story grueling at times. This story just did not evoke any emotion or empathy for the characters for me.
    • 3/5
      When I received this book from Early Reviewers, I thought I'd better read the original "Gap Creek" seeing as this The Road from Gap Creek was a sequel. I did read Gap Creek and very much enjoyed it and then reading the sequel I was fairly disappointed. It did not have the excitement and did not hold my interest nearly as much as the original Gap Creek had. Although the character development was very good, there really wasn't that much of a story line. Just day to day happenings of a probably fairly average poor Appalachian familiy in the 30's and 40's. I most probably would have rated the book higher than 3 stars if I had not read "Gap Creek" immediately before and compared to that wonderful book.
    • 3/5
      I had not read any other Gap Creek novels, but I found this one very well written and interesting. Looking forward to reading the other Gap Creek novels.
    • 4/5
      “The Road From Gap Creek,” by Robert Morgan, takes the ordinary life of a dirt-poor North Carolina mountain family and turns it into a celebration of everyday life and a loving portrait of rural Appalachia during the Great Depression and the Second World War. For those readers who were entranced by Robert Morgan’s 1999 Oprah Book Club Selection national bestseller “Gap Creek,” this sequel might seem an easy choice; however, I’m afraid a lot of readers may be disappointed…I was. Don’t get me wrong: “The Road From Gap Creek” is a beautiful book and a loving sequel. I’m glad I read it. Robert Morgan is an outstanding author; in fact, he’s a master storyteller who can effortlessly take ordinary life and recreate it into something magnificently rich and exceptional. Of course, the sequel satisfies our curiosity about what happens to Julie, Hank and their children, but for me, it never recaptured the magic of the original. Naturally, I had to ask myself, why? I join with a lot of other reviewers here in thinking that the new book is just too disjointed. The chapters jump around, back and forth across time and it is easy to get confused. Time rearranging in novels can be a very effective literary tool in the right situation, but it did not work in this case. Morgan’s style is to write books that readers love to fall into and get lost. A lot of why readers loved the “Gap Creek,” was that it put them into a reader’s trance. But reader can’t stay entranced when they are confused. It breaks the spell! It’s as simple as that. Another disappointment is that the sequel has a different, and in my estimation, far less effective narrator. “Gap Creek” was a thoroughly captivating story narrated in the first person by Julie. As readers, we were transported into her incredibly grueling and hardscrabble existence. We fell in love with her unique and powerful narrative voice. In the sequel, Julie’s daughter, Annie, tells the story. For some reason, I was never able to fall under the spell of Annie’s voice. I loved and believed in her character, but she failed to draw me intensely into her life. I felt more like a spectator than a participant.“The Road From Gap Creek” was a good book. I’m glad I read it. But I think I’d have been just as satisfied letting my own imagination conjure up a possible future for Julie, Hank and their children. I didn’t need this sequel.
    • 1/5
      I don't know what to say except that The Road From Gap Creek was not nearly as interesting or well written as Gap Creek. It took me a month to finish this book because it did not keep my interest at all.
    • 5/5
      Just like Robert Morgan's original Gap Creek, this book was awesome! Once I picked it up, I just couldn't put it down. Anyone who enjoys reading about history will like this book, the story is very engaging. I would and have recommended this book to my family and friends!!
    • 4/5
      I received this as an Early Reviewer, and it sat on my TBR pile for a while, but once I picked it up, I finished it quickly--it was a great read. A sweet story following the life of Annie Richards Powell, through the Depression and World War II, it encompasses both daily details of her life in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the impact of bigger events in the world on her life and family. I was drawn into the story, and enjoyed reading about the characters and their changes in this rural setting. This follows an earlier book, Gap Creek, which was an Oprah selection, but it stands alone as a story also.