My most favorite book--ever

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.