A New York Times Bestseller & Oprah's Book Club Pick
Young Julie Harmon works "hard as a man," they say, so hard that at
times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her to slaughter the
hogs and nurse the dying. People are weak, and there is so much to do.
At just seventeen she marries and moves down into the valley of Gap
Creek, where perhaps life will be better.
But Julie and Hank's new life in the valley, in the last years of the
nineteenth century, is more complicated than the couple ever imagined.
Sometimes it's hard to tell what to fear most--the fires and floods or
the flesh-and-blood grifters, drunks, and busybodies who insinuate
themselves into their new life. To survive, they must find out whether
love can keep chaos and madness at bay. Their struggles with nature,
with work, with the changing century, and with the disappointments and
triumphs of their union make Gap Creek a timeless story of a marriage.