Synopses & Reviews
The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls presents one of her most compelling novels, acclaimed by Anne Tyler, Annie Dillard, and more...
Everywhere about her, from the traffic on Highway 460 to the river that's gone black with coal dust, Crystal Spangler sees a current flowing from the mountain town of Black Rock into the wider world. As a teenager, she is elected beauty queen, gets good grades, and-despite her many enviable qualities-manages also to be well-loved. Everyone knows that she is destined to leave town and do great things.
And she does.
But no one expects her return; drawn back home by some sort of memory, as if the current that had taken her away had changed its mind...
Review
"The closest thing to reading this would be reading
Madame Bovary while listening to Loretta Lynn."
-Roy Blount, Jr.
"I loved this book."
-Anne Tyler
"Black Mountain Breakdown is like a country song. It is true and real; it is loving and sad."
-Annie Dillard
"The most evocative book I have read in a long time...Funny, tragic and haunting."
-Mary Lee Settle
Review
"The closest thing to reading this would be reading Madame Bovary while listening to Loretta Lynn." -Roy Blount, Jr.
Review
"Black Mountain Breakdown is like a country song. It is true and real; it is loving and sad." -Annie Dillard
About the Author
Lee Smith is the author of The Last Girls, Oral History, Fair and Tender Ladies, and other novels, and a recent story collection, Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger. She has won the O. Henry Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award.