If the Creek Don't Rise
Leah Weiss, 2017
Sourcebooks
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781492647454
Summary
He's gonna be sorry he ever messed with me and Loretta Lynn
Sadie Blue has been a wife for fifteen days. That's long enough to know she should have never hitched herself to Roy Tupkin, even with the baby.
Sadie is desperate to make her own mark on the world, but in remote Appalachia, a ticket out of town is hard to come by, and hope often gets stomped out.
When a stranger sweeps into Baines Creek and knocks things off kilter, Sadie finds herself with an unexpected lifeline …if she can just figure out how to use it.
This intimate insight into a fiercely proud, tenacious community unfolds through the voices of the forgotten folks of Baines Creek. With a colorful cast of characters that each contribute a new perspective, If the Creek Don't Rise is a debut novel bursting with heart, honesty, and homegrown grit. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1947-48
• Raised—Lynchburg, Virginia, USA
• Education—Dunbarton College; Kent State University
• Currently—lives in Lynchburg, Virginia
Leah Weiss is an American author, whose debut novel, If the Creek Don’t Rise, was published in 2017. She was born in North Carolina, not far from the tobacco farm where her mother was raised; when she was 10, her family moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Both places played a role in Weiss's development. As she told the Lynchburg News & Advance:
My mother’s simple upbringing on a farm and her ability to see "rich" where others saw "poor" influenced me. My dad’s people in Virginia were the artists, a granddad who was a violinist, my namesake Leah who designed her clothes and thought nothing of laying a brick patio by herself.
An avid Nancy Drew reader when young, and member of the debating team in high school, Weiss also studied piano, a talent which won her a scholarship to Dunbarton College in Washington, D.C. She also attended Kent State University.
Weiss married after graduation, gave birth to a son, and spent the next 20 years teaching music and penning freelance articles. In 1991 she took a job with the Virginia Episcopal School (VES) as the executive assistant to the school's headmaster.
During her 24 years at VES, Weiss worked to hone her writing, attending workshops and writing conferences in her spare time. If the Creek Don't Rise grew out of a short story she submitted to a 2011 contest — and won. Four years later, Weiss retired from VES, now with a book under her belt. It was 2015, the same year she landed a literary agent. (Adapted from The News & Advance.)
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Book Reviews
In this tender but powerful debut, Weiss paints both the bright and the dark in the lives of her fictional Appalachian community’s denizens.… All [characters] get a chapter or two to spin their own tales… highlighting Weiss’s considerable …skills.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Writing with a deep knowledge of the enduring myths of Appalachia, Weiss vividly portrays real people and sorrows. A strong, formidable novel for readers of William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy.
Library Journal
[A] masterful use of language.… Weiss' novel is a great suggestion for fans of the Big Stone Gap books, by Adriana Trigiani, and Mitford series, by Jan Karon
Booklist
Weiss catches and weaves together compelling voices…. Each chapter is told from a different character's perspective…. Part gothic, part romance, part heartbreaking Loretta Lynn ballad — Weiss' tale is a beguiling, compelling read.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our talking points to help start a discussion for If the Creek Don't Rise … then take off on your own:
1. In writing her novel, Leah Weiss said she was very much inspired by Olive Kiteridge and its structure as linked short stories. If you've read Elizabeth Strout's novel, do you see resemblences? If you've not read Olive Kiteridge, what do the shifting perspectives add to If the Creek Don't Rise? Do they contribute to a sense of community, perhaps?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: In what way is Sadie's life woven into the lives of others in Baines Creek. Trace the way in which each of the different storylines connects back to Sadie. Which character did you most engage with, appreciate, admire, dislike? What do their various voices convey: pain … fear … hope … wisdom … perseverance?
4. Follow-up to Question 1: What portrait of Baines Creek emerges from the various perspectives?
5. Describe Sadie Blue, her personality, her marriage to Roy Tuplin, her predicament. What do you admire in her … or what, perhaps, makes you impatient with her?
6. What makes Kate Shaw different from the other teachers who have come to Baines Creek? What personal challenges does she face in adjusting to her new life? Some in the community dislike Kate. Why
7. With her father dead, Sadie turns to her grandmother. What does she offer Sadie? How does Gladys' past parallel that of her granddaughter's.
8. Mary Harris Jones is perhaps everyone's favorite character. You might want to talk about her gifts to the community (both literal and metaphorical). When Marris first arrived at Baines Creek, at the age of 10, what were her initial impressions, especially when comapred to Rock Bottom where she had come from?
9. Overall, how would you describe the economic conditions — and life in general — in Baines Creek? What do you find appealing about the community — and what most disturbs you?
10. A number of husbands find justification for beating their wives from the Biblical verse, Ephesians 5:22-23. Talk about the passage and the way in which those men interpret or misinterpret it.
11. How did you respond to the almost stream-of-consciousness writing and the use of dialect: "a pinch of sad," or "a slice of selfish that won't pretty." Do you find it authentic … gimmicky… condescending?
12. Are you satisfied with the way the novel ended?
13. What is the significance of the title and it's relationship to Loretta Lynn's ballad? Talk about Sadie's attachment to the country folk singer.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution.)