I LOVE Olive Ann Burns' COLD SASSY TREE. I read it for the first time back in the late eighties/early nineties and loved it even then. My first reading was because my brother brought the book home during a weekend home from his first semester at college so I could read it for him for his freshman composition class. I was happy to do it. This is THE best book!!!
How does anyone not love this book? It has someone being run over by a train--and living. Romance. An older man getting married to a much younger woman just 3 weeks after the death of his first wife. Suicide. (Not that suicide makes a story great. It's just the way it's dealt with.) A "funeral party." Dyin' stories, because Grandma was the best in the county at telling 'em. It's set in the south with southern slang. It's set in 1906--when cars were first being introduced to the mass public. It's told from the perspective of a 15-year old boy.
And it was written by an amazing woman who should have lived long enough to write more! She started a sequel to COLD SASSY, but she died before she finished it. Ovarian cancer, I think it was. I find Burns' writing process to be just as fascinating as the book itself--she would get an idea and write it on whatever piece of paper she could get her hands on--napkins, receipts, corners of notes, etc.--then she would sit on her bed with all of her scraps of paper around her and work on putting them together to create a cohesive whole.
I, for one, believe that she was quite successful in her attempt. I LOVE COLD SASSY TREE......Everyone should read it, truly.
