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A review by nigellicus
The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb
5.0
In the Appalachian mountains, a man lies down to sleep and doesn't wake up. He isn't dead yet, but he isn't far off. A handwritten letter instructs his four surviving sons to build a coffin out of rosewood and bury him on the land. With their wives and partners in tow, they set to, but there are tragedies all around them. The ghost of a young girl whose bones are delivered to them in a rosewood box. The slow death of a way of life as a land speculator schemes and manipulates to drive people out of their homes. As the sons struggle to come to terms with their father's impending demise, more death lies in wait.
'More death lies in wait.' Heh, that's melodramatic, and accurate, but this isn't a melodramatic book, for all its gothic and thriller elements. The narrative hearkens back to the previous century, as one lot of people face disruption and displacement, to the present of the book, when another lot of people face the same. The latter-day land-grab may not be as bloody, but it is still protracted, painful and rife with injustice. McCrumb builds to a final, heartbreaking, suspense-filled climax in a setting haunted by ghosts and secrets and terrible tragedies.
'More death lies in wait.' Heh, that's melodramatic, and accurate, but this isn't a melodramatic book, for all its gothic and thriller elements. The narrative hearkens back to the previous century, as one lot of people face disruption and displacement, to the present of the book, when another lot of people face the same. The latter-day land-grab may not be as bloody, but it is still protracted, painful and rife with injustice. McCrumb builds to a final, heartbreaking, suspense-filled climax in a setting haunted by ghosts and secrets and terrible tragedies.