Heathen Valley

By Romulus Linney

Book Overview

Heathen Valley, Romulus Linney's haunting and original novel, was born from the church histories of the Valle Crucis mission in western North Carolina. Told in four parts, it is a story set in an almost unknown valley, "Heathen, a valley That Forgot God." With a quiet, muscular violence and biblical grace that readers of Cormac McCarthy will recognize, Linney takes us into the 1850s, where an idealistic Bishop from New England and a life-whipped, sorrowful transient named Starns, struggle to win souls and transform the valley. Widely reviewed when it was first published in 1962 and selected as an alternate for the Book of the Month Club, Romulus Linney's first novel Heathen Valley was never reprinted and has never before been in paperback.

"Starns was thirty-two years old that night, but he looked fifty. He was like a much older man who comes late in life to what learning he possesses, and therefore has no fear of what he knows he will never understand." from Heathen Valley

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593760124
• ISBN13: 9781593760120
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
• Length: 321 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Yeayah!

Freakin' coolest play ever. I loved it so much. So much drama. A bishop, a missionary, and an orphan try to help a group of heathens become better and have God in their life. They start to find religion, but not in the exact manner as the bishop would hope. After a while he gets upset and changes the church so that it is more Catholic and the town does not approve of this and they all go back to being Heathens again. It is a play about friendship, religion, betrayl, and finding your home. "If I had a home, I would never leave it. I would keep it with me, always." ~Billy

Touching, worthwhile and fascinating story of Appalachia

If you are interested in the early American protestant church, Appalachian history, America in the 1830's, or a good, gripping story with real people, this is a great book. The author reconstructs a bishop's project of building a mission in an area that has forgotten God - folks who's grandparents fled the revolutionary war and became heathens. The story reminds me of "The Education of Little Tree" but with teeth and with a strong message.