The Rosewood Casket
By Sharyn McCrumb
Dutton, $23.95
ISBN 0525940111
Also available in audio from Penguin Highbridge Audio, $23.95
ISBN 0140863869
Review by Chris Myrick
The Rosewood Casket (the fourth book in Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad series, following If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy-O, Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, and She Walks These Hills) is as complex as the intertwined growth of a honeysuckle-choked thicket of mountain laurel. Set primarily in and around an Appalachian mountain farm in late winter, the story revolves around the reunion of the four living sons of Randall Stargill, who lies in a coma, dying. The list of instructions found with the elder Stargill includes his request that the sons build his casket, by hand, of the well-aged rosewood stored in the barn. While the sons are grappling with building the coffin, grieving for their father, and tolerating each other's presence, Nora Bonesteel (mountain woman gifted/cursed with "the Sight" and a recurring character in this series) brings by a much smaller rosewood box to be buried with Mr. Stargill, preferably unopened. The contents of the box and the story that emerges from them as the book unfolds is just one of the many, predominately dark currents running through this story.
McCrumb has a gift for setting up and then converging several subplots in what becomes a cohesive whole. One such thread involves Clayt, the youngest of the Stargill boys. His principal joy in life is reenacting the life of Daniel Boone for school groups. The author uses Clayt and Boone as vehicles for both interweaving the history of the mountains into the story and advancing the plot.
Not only is this story rich in texture, it rings true. There is no happy ending, no particular reconciliation among the brothers, and, by design, not all the plot lines are neatly wrapped up. This is a story that stays with you, makes you think.
Chris Myrick is an accountant, father, and reader.
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