Gap Creek (1999) by Robert Morgan

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Gap Creek (1999)

by Robert Morgan

Gap Creek, South Carolina

South Carolina: 9/14

   Gap Creek is an "Oprah book," i.e. a book selected by Oprah Winfrey for her "Oprah's Book Club."  I would never openly mock Oprah Winfrey, but I've never been a fan of Oprah's club or any of the other celebrity book clubs which followed hers.  A couple hundred books into the 1,001 Novels project I can now say that I look forward to "her" books on the 1,001 Novels list for a couple reasons.  First, chicken or egg questions aside, Oprah picks hits- people actually read the books she likes, which makes her a person of significance in the world of literary fiction because;  second, Oprah and her team have genuinely good taste- it's a taste that clearly favors stories of struggle and adversity often featuring characters from the lower levels of the socio-economic ladder, but those are exactly the type of narrative I'm trying to access through this project, so that makes it a match.  

   Gap Creek was picked more or less from obscurity- it was published by a regional press (Algonquin Press of North Carolina) and half of the New York Times review- published two months before Oprah picked it for her club- spent half the review trying to convince readers not to ignore Gap Creek for a variety of reasons related to the marketing.  Julie Harmon, the narrator and protagonist is the middle daughter of a struggling Appalachian hill family.  Dad is permanently disabled, forcing Julie into the role of provider on the family farm (she is something like 15 when the action starts).  As will surprise no reader with any familiarity with how things go in this category of novel, Julie leaps to marry literally the first man who talks to her as a means of escape.

   Though she frequently bemoans her quick choice throughout the book, I, for one, thought she did just fine, since the husband she picks doesn't beat her up or abandon her, which is pretty rare behavior in this part of the country as far as literary fiction goes.  Julie and her husband re-locate to a shared "house" in Gap Creek and start building a life together.  Although there is less interpersonal drama than a reader might expect from the place and time of the book, the physical environment picks up the slack, providing a series of natural and man-made catastrophe's,

   I agree with the New York Times reviewer and presumably Oprah's selection team that Robert Morgan is a rare American author who can write convincingly about manual labor.  Unlike many of the narrators/protagonist in this part of America, I actually liked Julie Harmon: give me a plucky American broad any day of the week.