The many stars are two-fold: 1) somewhere around the 1/3 mark I couldn't wait to get back to the story and pretty much read it compulsively to the end 2) the writing was flawless and the structure -- by which I mean the way Neal unfolds his tale with wry and friendly compassion -- toward the odd assortment of neighbors living in a remote North Carolina holler is well-done. Recognizable. The threat hanging over them is death, the deaths they have each endured in their personal lives and a more present threat. A violent escapee from prison is supposedly holed up somewhere, having eluded a massive manhunt. Menace abounds and provides a darker seam throughout and which Neal handles so well. The ending is perfect! The structure fits seamlessly with the meditations on stoicism and on death (drawn from Marcus Aurelius and [The Tibetan Book of the Dead] might lead you to find those books and dip into them yourself. There are layers and levels here, that is, you can take the tale as a kind of modern-day ghost story or you can go deeper and think about how each character has found a way to go on living (or dying) as the case may be. The story, the structure, and the locale flow together so appropriately! Every year I am sure a few novels of this caliber appear and are not taken up by the Big Press. Their loss. Our gain.***** ( )

I throughly enjoyed this book, and savored it to the last page. The author is an exquisite story teller.
The book started off by keeping me on edge with the telling of an escape of two prisoners, one is captured and the other vanishes in to the deep woods. As the author moves along to the the characters who call that Yonah forest their home, I could feel a sense of dread throughout even the calm moments of the book.
The characters are so strong, love them or hate them (I hated Cal), you’re going to remember them. Thanks for the ARC Southern Fried Karma And Netgalley ( )

Appalachian Book of the Dead by Dale Neal

I am not really sure what to say about this book. I can’t say I “liked” it but it did make me think. I thought about the land and woods and the fox that lived on the land. I thought of the ghosts that inhabited the land and the stories told over fires and during daylight slipped throughout the pages of this book. I thought about good and evil, how we live our days, beliefs held about life and death and what comes after and between...I thought...so that was good. But I never really saw the point of the book and as I just wrote that I wonder if indeed this book is trying to tell us that the only point in living and dying and thinking is that there is no point at all.

I have to say that the characters, all of them, were impossible for me to relate to or want as friends. I understand (maybe) why they behaved as they did but never became invested in them or their stories. The story was told with flashbacks and perhaps visions of what had been and might be in the future and at times I wondered whose voice I was listening to. The writing was beautiful, lyrical and described scenes in a way that spoke to all of my senses.

Again...hard too know how to write a review. I think that the play on words related to “the book of the dead” was interesting in that the Buddhist Book of the Dead is read from by more than one character and there were definitely a number of dead or soon to be dead characters in the book...and additionally the dead in the ghost stories so...good job on that tying the two together.

So how to evaluate the book…

Did I like the book? Not really
Did it make me think? Definitely
Did I like any of the characters? No
Could I see the purpose of the book? Not really
Would I read more books by this author? Maybe

Hmm…

Thank you to NetGalley and Southern Fried Karma for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars ( )