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Christy (novel)

Christy

Author Catherine Marshall

Country United States of America

Language English

Genre Historical fiction

Publisher McGraw Hill

Publicationdate

1967

Media type Print

Pages 498 (first edition)

ISBN ISBN 0-310-24163-4 (paperbackedition) (Zondervan)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christy (released in 1967) is a historical fiction novel by Christian authorCatherine Marshall set in the fictional Appalachian village of Cutter Gap,Tennessee, in 1912. The novel was inspired by the story of the journey made byher own mother, Leonora Whitaker, to teach the impoverished children in theAppalachian region as a young, single adult. The novel explores faith andmountain traditions such as moonshining, folk beliefs and folk medicine.Marshall also made notes for a sequel, never published, which were found byher family some 34 years later.[1][2] Christianity Today ranked Christy as 27th ona list of the 50 books (post-World War II) that had most shaped evangelicals'minds after surveying "dozens of evangelical leaders" for their nominations.[3]

Contents1 Plot

1.1 Allusions to actual history, geography and science2 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations3 See also4 Notes5 External links

PlotWhile attending a Christian revival meeting, 19-year-old Christy Huddleson is fascinated when she listens to the founder ofan Appalachian mission program as he describes the work his group is doing and the needs of the Cutter Gap community.Christy, the daughter of a well-to-do family in Asheville, North Carolina, finds herself drawn to the idea of volunteering for themission to be a teacher to the needy Cutter Gap students. Her parents are initially reluctant, but she persists and soonmakes the trip to the remote area. From her first day in the Appalachians, she is challenged by the filthy conditions andprimitive folk medicine beliefs of the mountain people, but her mentor at the mission, a Quaker named Alice Henderson,encourages her to notice also the beauty in the community and people, and to help preserve the best of the Appalachians inways that will help the locals to become self-sustaining. Christy and her co-worker, minister David Grantland, attempt toeducate local students and to teach their neighbors an alternative to the family feuding and cycle of revenge that have been atradition for decades. Local physician Neill MacNeill is an agnostic who grew up in the mountains and who seeks to makeChristy more sympathetic to locals' concerns and traditions.

Plot threads include Christy's experiences in the school house and her burgeoning friendships with local women, David'schallenges in reaching a community that views him as an interfering outsider, family feuds, moonshiners who useschoolchildren as their assistants, and questions of faith. As Christy becomes better acquainted with MacNeill and Miss Alice,she discovers that the physician's late wife was Miss Alice's daughter (conceived when a predatory visiting minister rapedAlice as a teen), and that the physician's agnosticism was partly a reaction to the apparent injustice of his wife's death.Christy's faith is tried by these and other revelations, at the same time that she is romantically drawn both to the minister andthe physician.

Allusions to actual history, geography and science

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The fictional village of Cutter Gap is based on a community centered on Morgan Branch, near Del Rio in Cocke County,Tennessee.[4] Local landmarks associated with the story are marked for visitors, including the site of the Ebenezer Mission inthe smaller nearby community of Chapel Hollow.

At a women's society meeting where Christy was giving a talk regarding the plight of those living in Cutter Gap, a womanshares with her information regarding the Danish folk schools established by Grundtvig, in which adults learned to usetraditional folkways and crafts to become self-sustaining.

A wholly fictional MacNeill performs trepanation on an accident victim and studies trachoma in the local population. Severalcharacters also suffer from typhoid fever, and the educated characters in the book set out to teach better hygiene to the localpopulation in order to prevent the disease. MacNeill also lectures Christy on the origins of moonshining and the reasons whymany locals — including MacNeill — consider its prohibition to be an unfair block to their earning money from their crops.Christy eventually marries the physician.

Catherine Marshall, the widow of Dr. Peter Marshall when she wrote the book, following up on her best seller "A Man CalledPeter," has been quoted as saying the book was about 75% percent historical, although the main characters (the physician)and mountain woman descended from ancient royalty, are fictionalized. While in the book it is implied she ends up with thedoctor, the real "Christy," Catherine Marshall's mother, married a minister.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptationsChristy was made into a TV-movie and television series in 1994. The week after the movie and program debuted, the noveljumped from #120 up to #15 on the USA Today bestseller list.[5] Together, the novel and the TV series were the inspiration ofChristyFest, an annual celebration in Townsend since 1999.

See alsoChristy (TV series)

Notes1. ^ "Christy takes a husband: Heroine weds at conclusion of miniseries," The Daily Times (Maryville, TN), May 11, 2001 (no page

number).2. ^ Renee Peck. "Two guys, a girl and a simpler place - 'Christy' finally ties the knot," The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA),

May 13, 2001, page 9.3. ^ Editors. "The top books that have shaped evangelicals," Christianity Today, Vol. 50, Issue 10, October 2006, pages 51-55.4. ^ "One Week Out: Events coming next weekend," The Daily Times (Maryville, TN), June 13, 2008, Weekend section: "Although

Cutter Gap does not exist, it is widely believed that Marshall based the village on the real community of Morgan Branch innearby Cocke County. Townsend served as Cutter Gap for the popular CBS television series 'Christy' in the mid-1990s."

5. ^ "USA Today best-selling books," USA Today, April 14, 1994, page 4D.

External links20th Century America Bestsellers (http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Christy)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christy_(novel)&oldid=578949603"Categories: 1967 novels American Christian novels American historical novels Novels set in AppalachiaNovels set in Tennessee 1912 in fiction

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