Ghost Riders [Abridged] [Audiobook] (Audio Cassette)

She is too young to know firsthand the dialect and oldtime sayings she uses in this book. One in particular took my attention, "as the war wore on...." but on page 281 I was perturbed by her use of "a barking cat" -- surely this got past the editors. I've had cats as pets since 1979 and have yet to hear one bark. Tosca growled like a dog when she ate when we first got her, but she had lived in the country and had to eat the same as the dogs.

Her versatility is beyond compare. She peoples this book with luminaries such as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Generals Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart and the infamous Tom Dooley. Some of these folks are supposed to be real, others are carry overs from her other novels of the Appalachians (like old friends).

Politics are still the same, just as dirty and biased. It's good to know that today's leaders are not so original after all.

Using a young man as the main character is unusual for a woman writer, I think, but she gets into his mind and it comes off well. He is the real star of this book though he is peripheral and supposedly a minor character. After all, he is the one who actually sees and talks with the Ghost Riders.

The story is as well told as all her previous books. She is my favorite writer so I do have some of her best, others I passed on to people to introduce her style and expertise in Appalachian folklore.

This is entertaining and informative. She bases her stories on fact then elaborates -- as all good novelists do. She states that historians may indeed be fallible or even mendacious, but most are serious writers in their own right.

Zebulon Baird Vance comes to life as a human being through the McCrumb's wonderful blend of history and fiction -- and he is, and was, a great model for aspiring leaders. We can see into the agonies of leadership through his soul-searching letters. His deep bond with the land and people of the mountain counties in N.C. helps explain many of his political actions.

We readers also begin to understand the North Carolinians who chose to work for The Other Side. Maybe they're Ghost Riders now, or maybe they're not -- but we readers get to see inside a family torn between the Union and the Confederacy --

Overall, I think this novel works well as a timely statement against civil wars, and against wars in general.