Cataloochee is a beautiful valley in the southeastern corner of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, currently accessible by car on a winding one-lane road with turn-outs. It is where May Justus's father taught school for a few years when she was a little girl. Wayne Caldwell is one of the very finest authors with deep roots in the Western North Carolina mountains. "As fine a portrait of a community as has ever been painted and one of the very best historical novels I have ever read--a mesmerizing, panoramic tale of families who settled the wild, mountainous Cataloochee region of Western North Carolina. This novel is an epic, and Wayne Caldwell is a master storyteller." - Lee Smith.
New York: Random House, 2007. 352 pages. Trade paperback.