Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If a book seamlessly takes me through the full spectrum of emotions—makes me laugh out loud and break down crying—it gets all the stars from me.

This is one of the most honest depictions of the traditional South I have ever read. My paternal grandparents lived in an unincorporated community called Cypress Inn (a similarly unusual settlement name). Cold Sassy reminds me so much of what I observed there growing up. Some of the character names in this book made me giggle because they are common occurrences on my father’s side of the family. I have an “Uncle Leroy” and a “Pa Hoyt,” and I had never seen or heard bumpkinish names like that anywhere other than family tombstones and our genealogy book.

Although the class and race problems of the South are not the main focus of this novel and exist mainly as a backdrop, I liked that the story did not completely skirt over the issues or present a false, almost propagandistic narrative (à la Gone with the Wind). I especially appreciated when Miss Love pointed out to Will that people of color were not allowed to eat or drink from the same dining wares as white folks because of oppressive social customs rather than innocent hilarity. It was also moving to read about the class differences and terrible treatment of the mill workers compared to the townspeople. Even today, there is a marked difference between well-off Southerners and their “white trash” counterparts.

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𝓟.𝓢. This review was crossposted from Goodreads because it contains actual thoughts rather than a typically facetious single-sentence remark. View all my book ratings and pointless takes on Goodreads or The StoryGraph.