She also delivers books to Jackson Lovett, a new man on her route that is very kind to her and Junia.Ī few days later, she heads to the library Center, where she goes once a month to pick new books and magazines.

Later that day she is assaulted in the woods by the Preacher Vester Frazier, a cousin of Charlie, though Junia saves her. Cussy comes home to heal, self-induces an abortion, gets her job back, and a mule named Junia.Ĭussy begins her route one day to deliver her books and magazines, and one of her patrons, Angeline Moffit is pregnant and her husband Willie Moffit has been shot in the foot. A few weeks later Pa arranges for Charlie Frazier to marry her, and he rapes and beats her until one day he has a heart attack and dies. Pa is worried since he is a coal miner, and getting sick. They argue over her job, Pa saying a respectable woman should not work, Cussy claiming no one would marry a Blue - a woman with blue skin. Cussy and Pa talk about her job as a pack horse librarian, bringing books to the people in the mountains of Kentucky, as part of her work for the WPA during the Depression. Cussy Mary and her Pa wait for Cussy’s suitor to come by in their log cabin.

A sock falls off his blue foot.Ĭhapter One begins in 1936, but before the introduction. A librarian on a mule sees a dead man dangling on a rope in front of her, with a baby crying below. The novel opens in Kentucky, 1936 without a chapter title, with a short introduction. This historical fiction novel is 47 chapters long, but for the purposes of this guide is broken into six sections. Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2019. The following version of novel was used to make this guide: Richardson, Kim Michele.

The book woman from troublesome creek