Broke Neck, Kentucky, lies deep in Appalachia. Its people are
descendents of the men and women who settled the country during the
Revolutionary War, and their ways have not changed much in the past two
hundred years.
Shady Grove chronicles the riotous adventures and misadventures of
Broke Neck's Fowler clan, among them Frony, the feisty and articulate
widow who narrates the tale, and Sudley, the thrice-married farmer and
quintessential "ridge man." Sudley, who wields considerable political
influence among his kin and community, isn't happy when a new preacher
from "outside" comes in from his city-based denomination with ideas
about what's wrong in Broke Neck. What follows is a compelling example
of the tension between urban viewpoints and rural traditions, a central
conflict in Appalachia.
The town's delicate balance is disturbed when other outsiders -- federal
revenue officials and four suitors responding to a personal ad --
converge in an unlikely climax that is both comic and telling. In her
last book of fiction about her adopted Kentucky homeland, Janice Holt
Giles cleverly dispels the common stereotypes of rural peoples by
creating honest, believable characters who cherish their soil, churches,
songs, and lines of kin. Shady Grove is a novel that makes us laugh
and touches our hearts.
Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and
wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is
told in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.
