Catherine Marshall

Anna Wilson Fishel

An adaptation of the 1967 novel chronicling the experiences of a young woman after she arrives to teach school in a small town in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1912.

The Young Readers Edition

Christy

Celeste Richardson

Full review now posted!

This book is billed as the first Christian fiction novel. Before this point, an author’s faith might be woven through their work, but that didn’t put it in a different genre. Thanks to Marshall’s novel, an entirely new genre was born and has now split into multiple subgenres. The biggest awards for Christian fiction remains the Christy Awards in honor of this book. If there is any classic of the genre, it would obviously have to be this book, which meant it was something that I really needed to read.

I honestly expected fluff, because a lot of Christian historical fiction tends to veer in that direction. That was definitely not the case here. There was faith, yes, and it was an incredibly important element of the story. Faith was the binding force. But there was also a level of brutal honesty that was often uncomfortable to read. The lifestyle of the mountain people whose children Christy goes off to teach was appalling. They were in a way trapped in the past, unaware or untrusting of modernity and how life was changing as the country entered the 20th century. As a whole, they are maudlin and superstitious to the point of actually adversely affecting their own health. 

Christy is only 19, but she is desperate to make a difference. Not just with the children she teaches, but with the Cutter Gap area as a whole. Her parents are understandably upset by her choice to leave her well-to-do home for the squalor of the backwards mountain community to which she feels called. But Christy wants more than anything for her life to matter, and so she goes anyway. Through her deep emotional involvement in the lives of the Cutter Gap people and the guidance of Miss Alice, the woman who helped start the missions in Cutter Gap and surrounding areas, Christy’s faith becomes truly real to her for the first time in her life. Before this, church was what she and her family attended on Sunday. But as she is faced with questions from the people of the area, she has to start figuring out for herself what she actually believes and who God is to her. Her spiritual growth was the most real and genuine such growth I’ve ever come across in fiction.

Besides Christy, my favorite character was Miss Alice, the Quaker woman who helps run three missions scattered over the area. She takes Christy under her wing, and her own approach to faith was a beautiful thing. She didn’t believe in putting any conditions on love, or in trying to change the people of the area as soon as possible. Yes, she sees the need for change, but more than that she sees a need for a truer understanding of God and His unconditional love. So that’s what she offers: love. Miss Alice views God as a Friend and Comforter and Good Father who cares deeply about His people. The mountain people tend to see God as vengeful and His favor as fickle, and that’s what Miss Alice sets out to change. She was such a real character, with a real faith that defines her entire life. Her openness was incredibly refreshing.

What amazes me most about this book is the fact that it’s based on reality! Marshall wrote this book as a moderately fictionalized account of her own mother’s experiences teaching in a one-room school deep in the Smoky Mountains. That knowledge made everything I read more poignant and disturbing in turn. The bitter element of realism in this book, while compelling, is the reason this book was four stars for me instead of a full five. It made me incredibly sad, and was hard to read in places because of that sadness. However, I have a deep and profound respect for both the book and the author, and for how it helped develop an entire genre.

For more of my reviews, as well as my own fiction and thoughts on life, check out my blog, Celestial Musings.

Christy The Young Readers Edition

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