On Tuesday the 16th of October, I posted a challenge of Facebook, and it looked like this:

I agreed with Thom Kirkpatrick when he wrote, “I wish 1000 people would respond to this.” But just a few stepped up. I appreciated them for doing so, because I was interested in how the choices would turn out.

I guess the results are, in one way, not surprising — given that many on my list of friends tend to be more liberal. (I was surprised, however, that only a couple of my closest followers responded at all.) I made a quick count of the results: three for A; four for B; nineteen for C; and a handful who made alternate choices, typically between B and C.

I thought that those who responded would like to know where the three choices came from, if they didn’t know already.

• Choice A is paraphrased from the GOP’s web site, specifically here.
• Choice B is paraphrased from the DNC’s web site, specifically here.
• Choice C is paraphrased from the Judeo-Christian scriptures, specifically sample verses like these: Leviticus 19:34, Ruth 2:10, Matthew 25:35, Hebrews 13:2, 3 John 1:5, etc. (For the KJV-only folks: Leviticus 19:34, Ruth 2:10, Matthew 25:35, Hebrews 13:2, 3 John 1:5.)

my reading of late, particularly in and about the middle of the nineteenth century, suggests to me that our country has been just as seriously divided — if not more so — at other times as it is now. But I must say that we have never been under the influence of a man so ignorant, arrogant, and self-absorbed as our forty-fifth president.

That Bright Land by Terry Roberts

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I really liked this book, which my aunt gave me for either birthday or Christmas a couple of years ago. She saw the phrase “SOUTHERN GOTHIC THRILLER” on the back and thought I’d enjoy it. She was right.

I enjoy reading works set in the area where I grew up. Madison County in western North Carolina has a rich history and is an interesting socio-cultural stew today, and writers can do a lot with it. Terry Roberts has done a lot with it. The representation of Barnard resonates well with my memories of many trips there via bicycle and car from my ancestral home in Walnut. Big Pine and Hot Springs and the wooded MadCo hollers are also so familiar that I found myself easily able to be present with the characters.

And I enjoyed those characters, particularly the women, May June Washington and Sarah Freeman, both of whom come alive in the reading imagination. Jacob Ballard has an engaging voice and, like many Madison County voices, tells a fine story. The parade of interesting mountain folk was vivid and reminded me, in a good way, of those who come and go throughout Fred Chappell’s wonderful I AM ONE OF YOU FOREVER.

But Roberts’s story is his own in THAT BRIGHT LAND. It’s a good mystery, a touching love story, and a well-imagined historical fiction.



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