Come Go Home With Me: Stories By Sheila Kay Adams

Come Go Home with Me: Stories By Sheila Kay Adams

From Publishers WeeklyThe only thing slightly piquant about these sappy reminiscences is their location: a little place called Sodom. It's not the interesting Sodom though, but a remote mountain town in North Carolina. It does, however, allow for the odd amusing lines, as when an elderly resident hops out of the car upon returning home and declares ``God bless old Sodom!'' Adams is an Appalachian balladeer and storyteller, and a few of these bits charm with their insight into country ways-particularly the first, a brief memory of the day Adams and ``Granny'' served as landing area for a multitude of butterflies. But, as a whole, they are hokey. Most of the stories center around family: her maternal grandfather, ``Breaddaddy,'' tells a story about an Indian girl who ``was really purty''; in another story, she and Breaddaddy witness a Christmas miracle when the animals in the barn kneel down at midnight. Even illicit behavior comes off cute here. The stories are arranged in roughly chronological order, so Adams progresses from spray-painting a cat to hanging out at the ``Chat Pile'' with other teenagers passing around moonshine and beer. Adams writes in a style best described as self-deprecatingly hillbilly. She can't help winking at her audience when recalling how, as a fresh-faced college student, a professor once asked her to sing a ballad ``a cappella'' and she asked him to ``talk out the first line of this Acappella or at least tell me how the story goes, I might very well know it by another name.''Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.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.ReviewBy 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 SmithAbout the AuthorSheila 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.