What makes “a book you could live in?” First—Characters: They are so well-defined, you could gossip about them, tell them what to do, or avoid, however wrongheadedly they behave. The five vital women who anchor The Bed She Was Born In—Adaire, Ludie, Millie, Anna, Maddie—compel us to root for them to be honest or devious; for instance, when Adaire angrily refuses to help at a Yankee field hospital, we strain for her learn compassion even for her enemies.
Tied to Character is ... Second—Dialogue: When the characters speak, you hear them in your head. Each has a distinctive way of expressing herself, so even without “she said,” we know who speaks. When we read “Miss Anna and me went out to the farm cause she sick,” we know this is Maddie narrating.
Characters and their Dialogue serve ... Third—Plot: The five strong women who anchor this sweeping saga of two North Carolina families, set between the end of the American Civil War and the last weeks before Pearl Harbor, must not merely live in our imagination, speak in distinctive voices; they must work in harmony and cacophony and chaos to the kind of end that, sad or happy, violent or serene, satisfies us that it must turn that way, this time.
Fourth—a sense of place. Baker NC is imaginary, but we can feel the sun, taste the muggy rain, smell the greens cooking. We stop reading the words, and find ourselves there, on the battlefield, in the filthy cattle car, at dinner with glittering guests, water-clear crystal, gleaming silver.
Get this book. Read it. This is a book to live in.
— schuyler kaufman, Carolina Mountain Living, Spring 2006, p. 51
