Published Jan 28, 2015
294 Pages
Genre: FICTION / Family Life / General
Set in Eastern Kentucky circa 1900, THE DEVIL'S BACK chronicles the early years of Laurey Castle and Adam Moore's marriage. Theirs is both a joyful and difficult union complicated by a twenty-year difference in their ages. THE DEVIL'S BACK is more than an engaging narrative, however. Parsons' personal roots in the Big Sandy River Region and her careful research combine to authentically resurrect a time, a place and its people. Her original and authoritative voice does not waver as she brings to life the sprawling Castle and Moore families and their Appalachian culture. Reminiscent of Robert Morgan's GAP CREEK, THE DEVIL'S BACK is both a delightful read and a significant contribution to a region's history and folklore. -- Georgia Green Stamper, author of BUTTER IN THE MORNING and YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE
THE DEVIL'S BACK, like Jim Wayne Miller's novels, NEWFOUND and HIS FIRST BEST COUNTRY, illustrates that Marie Parsons has been doing what Miller recommends that all writers do: absorbing. This novel illustrates that Parsons has been absorbing the mountain culture as a keen observer of its customs and careful listener to its language. In reading THE DEVIL'S BACK, you will come to know her characters as you know your own family and will learn what the word "family" once meant in the mountains. -- Ken Slone, author of MOUNTAIN TEACHER and AT HOME IN THE MOUNTAINS
A Kentuckian, born and bred, Marie Parsons knows the Appalachian region of which she writes quite well. She spent most of her college teaching career in her home state. A few years after retiring, she started writing short stories, and soon these stories morphed into a novel, THE DEVIL'S BACK.
