Road to Tater Hill (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Road to Tater Hill Deborah Stevenson Hemingway, Edith M. Road to Tater Hill. Delacorte, 2009 [224p]. Library ed. ISBN 978-0-385-90627-2 $19.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-385-73677-0 $16.99 Ebook ed. ISBN 978-0-375-89371-1 $16.99 Annie always loves spending summers at her grandparents’ North Carolina mountain cabin, but this year of 1963 has been marred by tragedy: her day-old baby sister has died without ever leaving the hospital. Annie’s mother is sunk into depression and her father is stationed overseas, so the eleven-year-old deals with her grief mostly on her own. She gradually finds friendship, however, with Miss Eliza, the old woman who’s returned to the abandoned cabin up Tater Hill; she’s shocked to discover that Miss Eliza is, in fact, the woman deemed a murderer by local rumor, but she learns that her friend’s story is deeper than childish lore had conveyed. While the story inclines toward the well-worn in places, it’s got some original touches, too: Miss Eliza was a woman stuck in an abusive marriage whose self-defense sent her to prison, and Annie’s mother faces the limited possibilities her era offers for treatment of depression. Annie’s own sadness at the lost possibilities of her much-anticipated baby sister is vividly conveyed (she takes to carrying around a smooth, cradle-able “rock baby” as consolation), and it’s also sad and believable that she’s largely on her own in facing it in light of the greater debility of her mother. Fans of Ruth White–style country-set family dramas will find Tater Hill a welcoming literary destination. [End Page 65] Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois