Annie Richards Powell’s parents have changed since their first year of marriage at the turn of the century, related in Robert Morgan’s first book about the Richards family, Gap Creek (1999). In fact, the whole world has changed since then. Annie, her preacher husband, her extended family, and their Green River, N.C., community struggle to survive and make sense of the Great Depression and imminent war.
Though World War II seems far beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, no one is immune to its vortex. Annie and her family are irrevocably scarred by a tragedy and its inevitable ripple effects of grief and despair. Annie realizes that the war “would never be over for any of us.”
Though The Road from Gap Creek deals with a grievous time in American and world history, hope resonates through Robert Morgan’s descriptions of nature, loving relationships, sacrificial deeds, and a fractured yet faithful church. (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)
About the Author
Sonya VanderVeen Feddema is a freelance writer and a member of Covenant CRC in St. Catharines, Ontario.