Fourteen-year-old
narrator Will Tweedy takes us to 1906 small-town Georgia in this
delightful novel. Will shares the starring role with his grandfather,
Rucker Blakeslee, owner of the town of Cold Sassy Tree's general store.
At the start the prickly Grandpa Rucker is mourning his wife, who was
beloved by all. Just three weeks after the funeral, however, Rucker
marries his store's milliner, the appropriately named Love Simpson, 30
years his junior.
Rucker's two daughters (one of them is Will's mother) and the rest of
Cold Sassy are aghast at the lack of propriety. It hardly quells the
gossip when the harassed Miss Love announces that the marriage is
simply a housekeeping arrangement that she accepted in return for being
willed the Blakeslee house. With the rest of the town against her, Miss
Love turns for friendship to Will, who adores his grandfather. Will
becomes the confidante of Miss Love, whose feelings for Rucker are
becoming less platonic, and his grandfather, who talks about life,
love, death, and religion with an independent mind.
On the cusp between a child's innocence and the first stirrings of
sexual attraction, and unconcerned about the conventions that govern
the adults, Will is the ideal observer of his grandfather's story. He
also is an entertaining teller of his own exploits. Mischievous and
risk-taking, Will is not above pranks like releasing rats on stage at
his despised aunt's play — knowing he'll be caught and taking
his punishment like a man.
Cold Sassy Tree
was the first novel by a 60-year-old Southern newspaperwoman, who based
the novel on her family's stories. Burns died of cancer before
finishing the sequel, Leaving
Cold Sassy, which was released uncompleted with her notes.
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