The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek – Kim Michele Richardson

I think what I like best about this novel is the confirmation of my long-held belief about the power of reading and how the written word can affect and change people. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a powerful story in honour of the brave women of the Kentucky Pack Horse Library service.

It is also a unique story about people, and a place and time in our world’s history that I knew very little about, including what Kentucky was like in the 1930’s; the deprivation and poverty that pervaded; about the Kentucky Blue people and the tenacity of a group of female Pack-horse Librarians that changed so many people’s lives.

This is the tale of a strong woman’s (one of the last living ‘Blue People’) belief that books can carry us anywhere and help us overcome anything.

Cussy Mary Carter is a 19-year-old girl from Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. She was born with a rare genetic condition – her skin had always been tinged a deep blue. As part of the new governmental programme under Roosevelt aimed at bringing reading material to isolated rural Kentuckians, Cussy becomes one of the Pack-horse Librarians who rides a mule over treacherous terrain to deliver books and periodicals to people of limited means.

Called ‘Bluet’ or ‘Book Woman’, she delights in bringing books as well as messages, medicine and advice to her patrons in the most remote parts of the county, despite being treated as an outcast whose ‘disease’ might be contagious. Through the bigotry and discrimination Cussy suffers as a result of her skin colour, one recognises once again the insidious behaviour that can result when a society feels threatened by things it doesn't understand.

Richardson created a true heroine in Cussy. One who loves books and reading as much as I do but who is also fiercely committed to spreading this joy to her patrons despite facing – together with her trusty mule – untold dangers such as treacherous mountain ranges, hostile humans, wild cats, snakes and more.

Cussy remains strong in the face of those who cut her with words or scorn her with dirty glances. She is intrigued by what she reads about the outside world and the magazine images of happy people with enough food, beautiful clothes and ritzy lifestyles.

There is so much more to this novel: the indifference and harshness of the companies running the coal mine industry at the time, the desperate poverty, the traditions of courting, the incredible plight of women, and of course the intrigue of the ‘Blue People’ and where that genetic peculiarity originated from.

I honour the writer for her thorough research and for bringing this story to us in such a vivid and entertaining way. And I have to agree with one review that summarised it thus: ‘With a focus on the personal joy and broadened horizons that can result from access to reading material, this well-researched tale serves as a solid history lesson on 1930s Kentucky.’