The Legend of Nance Dude

By Maurice Stanley

Book Overview

One cold February morning in 1913, a 64-year-old woman known as Nance Dude led her granddaughter, Roberta Putnam, out of their home in western North Carolina and up the side of a mountain. She... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0914875434
• ISBN13: 9780914875437
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Bright Mountain Books (Historical Images)
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.8" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Warning:Nance Dude Will Get You

Don't even open this book if you have important plans for the next three days.*Nance Dude* grabs you from the first sentence and compels you to pick it up again and again until you have read the last line.Based on a true story, it tells of a women who killed her own grand-daughter in the mountain country of North Carolina in 1913. You know immediately who did it, the outcome and some of the people involved, but the why's and how's are more compelling than in Capote's *In Cold Blood.*Still Nance is not a killer story. It is a story of love, compassion, redemption and ultimately the tale of a down-trodden person, who, like *Everyman,* represents all down-trodden people. Nance Dude becomes, through Stanley's skillful handling, a symbol for the black plight, battered women, abused children, those physically and emotionally impoverished.One cannot help but think of *Cold Mountain* because of the time and the setting, but Nance goes far beyond *Cold Mountain.* In it, Stanley carries you to every human emotion in your psyche. You will laugh, smile, become enraged, cry, feel fear, but most of all you will be constantly surprised and impressed at the buttons Stanley has pushed in you that you thought were hidden.There is action, suspense, romance, epic tales covering a hundred years, sadness and mystery. What's more Stanley is such a skilled writer that he compresses all of this emotion and time into 253 pages. Writing with the excitement of Grisham, the fine ear for dialog as Goldman, the tenderness of Wolfe and the compassion of Capote, Williams, McCullers and Welty, Stanley will not let you alone, once you have picked him up.Put this book at the top of your list. But remember, cancel everything on your calendar for the next three days.(The book is -- as of 12/99 -- back in print from Marblehead Publishing, Raleigh NC.)