From Publishers Weekly
Skipping back and forth in time from the 18th to the late 20th century, and drawing on her own family history, McCrumb tells two stories in her appealing new novel, one heading toward, the other returning to, the Appalachians. In the present-day sections, 83-year-old John Walker is slowly dying in the eastern Tennessee town where he has lived most of his life, while his estranged daughter, Linda Walker better known as the country singer Lark McCourry is trying to make it home before he dies. She is also trying to recollect an old song she heard once at a family gathering, a song she hopes will round out her forthcoming album. But heading home, Lark is downed in the mountains in a small plane and trapped inside it. Meanwhile, Malcolm McCourry, one of Lark's maternal ancestors, narrates the story of his life, from the day in 1751 when English seamen kidnapped him at the age of nine from the Scottish isle Islay to the close of his life in the mountains of western North Carolina. Always he carries with him a song he learned aboard ship, which is then passed down to his descendants, each one remembering it at a crucial moment. McCrumb, an award-winning crime and mystery writer, has mixed historic and contemporary plots with success in the past (notably in She Walks These Hills and other novels in her Ballad series; some characters from the Ballad series reappear here), and she does so again, letting the past inform the present and generating a good deal of suspense in a novel that is not properly a mystery. Readers may come to feel that Lark McCourry, unlike the tune-miners looking to stake a copyright claim to every mountain song they hear, is the real songcatcher, the rightful inheritor of her family's music. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The statement on McCrumb's web site (www.sharynmccrumb.com) that her new book "will be Roots with a tune" is not quite accurate. While it is about many generations of a Southern family and a song that is passed down from one to the next, it is in no other way comparable to a masterpiece like Alex Haley's Roots. In alternating chapters, we read of the kidnapped Scottish boy who brings the song to America and his adventures on the frontier, countered with the travails of his modern-day folk singer descendant, whose plane crashes on her way back to her Appalachian home to track down the song. Interspersed with these are distantly relevant story lines involving a hiker trapped in the mountains and the ghost of another dead folk singer who visits with the living demanding sole proprietary rights to the song. McCrumb (The PMS Outlaws; The Ballad of Frankie Silver) based the story on her own family's history, but the sections that take place in contemporary times are more enjoyable than the interruptions from the past. Still, given McCrumb's popularity, most public libraries should consider.- Lisa Bier, Mashantucket Pequot Research Lib., CT Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
This book chronicles the role of song in the oral tradition of Appalachia as it follows a young boy kidnapped by a sailing ship in the mid-1700s--from the Scottish isles to a community in New Jersey and to the mountains of North Carolina. The use of two narrators helps the listener keep track of the various strands of the tale. James Daniels portrays various male narrators and characters, and Aasne Vigesaa portrays a number of female narrators and characters. As described in the afterword, the story is grounded in the history the author discovered while researching her family's roots. Appalachian-style dulcimer music is used for transitions between tapes. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Appalachian novelist McCrumb's Ballad series effectively straddles mystery and mainstream genres. The stories are suspenseful but center on character, and they reflect McCrumb's ability to create a fictive quilt from odd bits of history, song, and poetry. In this latest in the series, McCrumb follows a single ballad through seven generations of the McCourry family, beginning with Malcolm McCourry, kidnapped as a child from the Scottish Isle of Islay in 1751 and brought to the American frontier. The "songcatcher" is Lark McCourry, a contemporary country-western singer, haunted by her memory of fragments of this ballad from her childhood. Past collides with present when Lark is called home to care for her dying father, from whom she has long been estranged. McCrumb shuttles between two stories: that of the kidnapped eighteenth-century Scottish boy brought to America against his will and that of Lark, brought back home against her will. Investing surprising suspense into Lark's search for the words to the ballad and for the tune of her own life, McCrumb gives the reader intriguing characters, great insight into the landscape and folkways of the South, and rich bits of comedy (a character comments that hiking the Appalachian Trail in summer is like going mall walking). Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


The New York Times Book Review
McCrumb writes with quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic. Like every true storyteller she has the sight.


The San Diego Union-Tribune
Sharyn McCrumb is one of our most gifted authors.


Book Description
Folksinger Lark McCourry is haunted by the memory of a song. As a child she heard it from her relatives in the North Carolina mountains, and she knows that the song has been in her family since 1759, when her ancestor, nine-year-old Malcolm MacQuarry, kidnapped from the Scottish island of Islay, learned it aboard an English ship. The song accompanied young Malcolm when he made his way to Morristown, New Jersey, where he apprenticed with an attorney, became a lawyer himself, and fought in the American Revolution. The song went with Malcolm in 1790, when he left his family and traveled the Wilderness Road to homestead in western North Carolina, where he remarried and raised a second family.

The song, passed down through the generations, carries Malcolm's descendants through the settling of the frontier, the Civil War, the coming of the railroads, and into modern times, providing both solace in the present and a link to the past. Over the years, though, the memory of the old song has dimmed and Lark McCourry's only hope of preserving her family legacy lies in mountain wisewoman Nora Bonesteel, who talks to both the living and the dead.


About the Author
Sharyn McCrumb is the author of several bestselling novels, including The Rosewood Casket, She Walks These Hills, and The Ballad of Frankie Silver, which was nominated for a SEBA award. She has received awards for Outstanding Contributiuon to Appalachian Literature and Southern Writer of the Year. Her books have been named notable books of the year by both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Known for her contributions to Appalachian literature, as well as for writing bestselling novels, Sharyn McCrumb demonstrates her masterful storytelling skills with great aplomb in The Songcatcher. At the heart of this haunting tale is a centuries-old ballad that ties together several separate stories spanning many generations and nearly 300 years.

In the middle of the 18th century, a young lad named Malcolm McCourry is kidnapped from the Scottish isle he calls home and pressed into slave labor on a ship where he learns a haunting ballad he will later pass on to his descendants. McCourry eventually ends up in America, becomes a lawyer, marries, starts a family, and fights in the Revolutionary War. Several generations of McCourrys follow, leading up to modern-day country singer Lark McCourry, who wants to find a ballad she vaguely recalls from her childhood and record it on an upcoming album. But on a flight home to visit her dying father and search out the song, her plane crashes in the Carolina mountains, leaving her trapped in the wreckage. As she struggles for survival, the ballad and some of those whom it has touched -- both living and dead -- come to play a pivotal role.

McCrumb￯﾿ﾽs stirring tale is only part fiction; she notes in an afterword that the historical characters come from her own carefully researched family tree. In the hands of a lesser writer this might come across as self-serving, but in McCrumb￯﾿ﾽs skillful hands, it merely enhances the work. (Beth Amos)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Capturing the enduring beauty of the Appalachian mountains where she sets her novels, Sharyn McCrumb returns with a beautifully written, historically accurate tale of a song's passage through history-from the 1700s to the present, from the shores of Scotland to western North Carolina...where a folksinger longs to rediscover its haunting tune.

FROM THE CRITICS

San Diego Union-Tribune

Sharyn McCrumb is one of our most gifted authors.

New York Times Book Review

McCrumb writes with quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic. Like every true storyteller she has the sight.

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's November 2001 review of the Brilliance audiobook edition: McCrumb's latest in her Ballad series continues the series' tradition of a multilayered story full of the history, spirit and flavor of the Appalachian Mountains... Malcolm is an immigrant to the colonies who, when nine years old, was kidnapped from his home in Scotland in 1759. His life finally led him to the Appalachian Mountains, which were then considered the frontier. His descendant, Lark McCourry, a successful country musician, is trapped in a small plane that has crashed as she traveled home to see her estranged father. As Malcolm tells his story and Lark employs a cell phone as a lifeline as searchers hunt for her, the common thread is "The Rowan Stave," the song Malcolm learned on his voyage to the colonies that was passed down as a part of family history and one for which Lark is searching...For readers wondering if the song is real, McCrumb solves that mystery too. Enthusiastically recommended. (A Ballad Novel). KLIATT Codes: SA*￯﾿ﾽExceptional book, recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2001, Penguin Putnam, Signet, 404p., Moxley

Library Journal

Full of lore about Appalachia and early folk music, this book, read competently by James Daniels and Aasne Vigesaa, tells of contemporary singer Lark McCourry's search for a folk song once heard at a family gathering. McCrumb also interweaves the life history of Malcolm McCourry, one of Lark's maternal ancestors, who was kidnapped at age nine from the Scottish Island of Islay and who learned the song aboard an English ship in 1759. It accompanied him to Morristown, NJ, where he became a lawyer and then back to North Carolina when, after leaving his grown family, he went to homestead in the wilderness. Passed down through the generations, the song had been nearly lost when Lark began her search. The author blends the historic and contemporary threads smoothly, building suspense as the story progresses. Dispelling myths about Appalachian people as uneducated hillbillies, she populates the novel with strong, talented, well-defined characters. A mystery and crime writer, McCrumb is perhaps best known for She Walks These Hills and The Ballad of Frankie Silver, which was nominated for a SEBA award. The tape quality is excellent; recommended for all public libraries. Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile