Gabriel’s Songbook by Michael Amos Cody
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Oh my, it’s good. In fact, it’s so awesome that I have half a box of copies that I keep near the desk in my home office. I remember thinking that it was going to be too autobiographical, but I find it surprisingly fictionalized. That’s good, I think.
The Appalachia in it is the one in which I grew up, but Gabriel’s Runion doesn’t really exist (although such a place did exist once). The novel’s Runion is part Marshall, part Mars Hill, with maybe a dash of Hot Springs added in. Gabriel’s Nashville is the one in which I spent most of my 20s, only hints of which remain in today’s Nashville.