Description

Winner of the 1997 Clark Cox Historical Fiction Award, North Carolina Society of Historians.

Sheila Adams has been performing Appalachian ballads and telling stories for over twenty years. A native of Madison County, North Carolina, she was introduced to the tale-telling tradition by her great-aunt "Granny," well-known balladeer Dellie Chandler Norton. This collection of Adams's stories provides a rare portrait of a distinctive mountain community and charts the development of an artist's unique voice. The tales range from stories of heroic, sometimes fierce, mountain settlers to the comic adventures of local drifters and tricksters, from magical childhood encounters to adult rites of passage. We meet Bertha and the snake handlers, local preacher Manassey Fender (who "looked like a pencil with a burr haircut, in a suit"), and Adams's beloved grandfather Breaddaddy, who taught her about life and death with an enchanting graveyard dance. But perhaps the most powerful character depicted here is "Granny," whom Adams calls "the most exciting person I have ever known and the best teacher I would ever have." By weaving these remembrances into her stories, Adams both preserves and extends a rich artistic heritage.

Praise for Come Go Home with Me

"Pure mountain magic."
—Life

"In Come Go Home With Me, a collection of Adams' short stories, we find tales that are charming and filled with mountain magic."
—Winston-Salem Journal

"By turns hilarious and deeply moving, always lively, Sheila's stories paint the portrait of a whole culture, from the past to the present day."
—from the Foreword by Lee Smith

Extended Copyright Information

Copyright 1995 by the University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.

Previously published by the University of North Carolina Press.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

About the Author

Sheila Kay Adams, a former public school teacher, now pursues a career of sharing the music, stories, and heritage of her mountain culture. She lives with her husband and children in western North Carolina.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

This book is lovingly dedicated to my children, Melanie Michelle Rice, Hart Adams Barnhill, and Andrew Taylor Barnhill. They are my reasons...
Folks in Sodom used to say, “Come go home with me.” In the following stories, I am inviting you to do just that.
Sodom is a community located in the ...

Copyright

Copyright 1995 by the University of North Carolina Press.

All Rights Reserved.