On Agate Hill: a novel
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Description
A dusty box discovered in the wreckage of a once prosperous plantation on Agate Hill in North Carolina contains the remnants of an extraordinary life: diaries, letters, poems, songs, newspaper clippings, court records, marbles, rocks, dolls, and bones. It's through these treasured mementos that we meet Molly Petree. Raised in those ruins and orphaned by the Civil War, Molly is a refugee who has no interest in self-pity. When a mysterious benefactor appears out her father's past to rescue her, she never looks back. Spanning half a century, On Agate Hill follows Molly's passionate, picaresque journey through love, betrayal, motherhood, a murder trial-and back home to Agate Hill under circumstances she never could have imagined. Lee Smith is the author of fourteen novels, including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, Saving Grace, and Guests on Earth, as well as four collections of short stories, including Me and My Baby View the Eclipse and News of the Spirit. Her novel The Last Girls was a New York Times bestseller as well as a co-winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. A retired professor of English at North Carolina State University, she has received an Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature. Dear Diary, This book belongs to me Molly Petree age thirteen today May 20 in the year of our Lord 1872, Agate Hill, North Carolina. I am an orphan girl. This is my own book of my own self given to me by the preachers wife Nora Gwyn who said, This little diary is for you my dear unfortunate child, to be your friend and confi dent, to share all your thoughts and deepest secrets for I know how much you need a friend and also how much you love to read and write. I do believe you have a natural gift for it. Now it is my special hope that you will set down upon these pages your own memories of your lovely mother and your brave father, and of your three brothers as well, and of all that has befallen you. For I believe this endeavor might help you, Molly Petree. So I urge you to take pen in hand commencing your diary with these words, Thy will be done O Lord on Earth as it is in Heaven, Amen. Well, I have not done this! And I will not do it either no matter how much I love pretty Nora Gwyn who looks like a lady on a fancy plate and has taught me such few lessons as I have had since Aunt Fannie died. NO for I mean to write in secrecy and stelth the truth as I see it. I know I am a spitfire and a burden. I do not care. My family is a dead family, and this is not my home, for I am a refugee girl. I am like the ruby-throated hummingbird that comes again and again to Fannies red rosebush but lights down never for good and all, always flying on. And it is true that often I feel so lonesome for all of them that are gone. I live in a house of ghosts. I was born before the Surrender and dragged from pillar to post as Mamma always said until we fetched up here in North Carolina after Columbia fell. Our sweet Willie was born there, into a world of war. He was real little all waxy and bloody, and Old Bess put him into a dresser drawer while the fires burned red outside the windows. Mamma used to tell it in that awful whisper which went on and on through the long hot nights when she could not sleep and it was my job to wet the cool cloths required for her forehead which I did faithfully. I loved my mamma. But I was GLAD when she died, I know this is a sin. I have not told it before. But I am writing it down anyway as Nora Gwyn said and I will write it all down every true thing in black and white upon the page, for evil or good it is my own true life and I WILL have it. I will. I am the legal ward of my uncle Junius Jefferson Hall who is not really my uncle at all but my mothers first cousin a wise and mournful man who has done the best he could for us all I reckon. We arrived he
More Details
ISBN:
9781565124523
9781428103115
9781449896430
9781565126589
9781428103115
9781449896430
9781565126589
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Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | f80e00fe-4a2c-8926-c7dd-6fba2e553c6c |
---|---|
Grouping Title | on agate hill |
Grouping Author | lee smith |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2024-04-27 21:57:43PM |
Last Indexed | 2024-05-04 22:22:07PM |
Solr Fields
accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
auth_author2
Ferland, Danielle
Firth, Katie
Forbes, Kate
Firth, Katie
Forbes, Kate
author
Smith, Lee, 1944-
author2-role
Ferland, Danielle,reader
Firth, Katie,reader
Forbes, Kate,reader
hoopla digital
Firth, Katie,reader
Forbes, Kate,reader
hoopla digital
author_display
Smith, Lee
display_description
A dusty box discovered in the wreckage of a once prosperous plantation on Agate Hill in North Carolina contains the remnants of an extraordinary life: diaries, letters, poems, songs, newspaper clippings, court records, marbles, rocks, dolls, and bones. It's through these treasured mementos that we meet Molly Petree. Raised in those ruins and orphaned by the Civil War, Molly is a refugee who has no interest in self-pity. When a mysterious benefactor appears out her father's past to rescue her, she never looks back. Spanning half a century, On Agate Hill follows Molly's passionate, picaresque journey through love, betrayal, motherhood, a murder trial-and back home to Agate Hill under circumstances she never could have imagined. Lee Smith is the author of fourteen novels, including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, Saving Grace, and Guests on Earth, as well as four collections of short stories, including Me and My Baby View the Eclipse and News of the Spirit. Her novel The Last Girls was a New York Times bestseller as well as a co-winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. A retired professor of English at North Carolina State University, she has received an Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature. Dear Diary, This book belongs to me Molly Petree age thirteen today May 20 in the year of our Lord 1872, Agate Hill, North Carolina. I am an orphan girl. This is my own book of my own self given to me by the preachers wife Nora Gwyn who said, This little diary is for you my dear unfortunate child, to be your friend and confi dent, to share all your thoughts and deepest secrets for I know how much you need a friend and also how much you love to read and write. I do believe you have a natural gift for it. Now it is my special hope that you will set down upon these pages your own memories of your lovely mother and your brave father, and of your three brothers as well, and of all that has befallen you. For I believe this endeavor might help you, Molly Petree. So I urge you to take pen in hand commencing your diary with these words, Thy will be done O Lord on Earth as it is in Heaven, Amen. Well, I have not done this! And I will not do it either no matter how much I love pretty Nora Gwyn who looks like a lady on a fancy plate and has taught me such few lessons as I have had since Aunt Fannie died. NO for I mean to write in secrecy and stelth the truth as I see it. I know I am a spitfire and a burden. I do not care. My family is a dead family, and this is not my home, for I am a refugee girl. I am like the ruby-throated hummingbird that comes again and again to Fannies red rosebush but lights down never for good and all, always flying on. And it is true that often I feel so lonesome for all of them that are gone. I live in a house of ghosts. I was born before the Surrender and dragged from pillar to post as Mamma always said until we fetched up here in North Carolina after Columbia fell. Our sweet Willie was born there, into a world of war. He was real little all waxy and bloody, and Old Bess put him into a dresser drawer while the fires burned red outside the windows. Mamma used to tell it in that awful whisper which went on and on through the long hot nights when she could not sleep and it was my job to wet the cool cloths required for her forehead which I did faithfully. I loved my mamma. But I was GLAD when she died, I know this is a sin. I have not told it before. But I am writing it down anyway as Nora Gwyn said and I will write it all down every true thing in black and white upon the page, for evil or good it is my own true life and I WILL have it. I will. I am the legal ward of my uncle Junius Jefferson Hall who is not really my uncle at all but my mothers first cousin a wise and mournful man who has done the best he could for us all I reckon. We arrived he
format_category_eh
Audio Books
Books
eBook
Books
eBook
format_eh
Book
CD Audiobook
eAudiobook
eBook
CD Audiobook
eAudiobook
eBook
id
f80e00fe-4a2c-8926-c7dd-6fba2e553c6c
isbn
9781428103115
9781449896430
9781565124523
9781565126589
9781449896430
9781565124523
9781565126589
itype_eh
ADULT BOOK
ADULT BOOK ON CD
ADULT BOOK ON CD
last_indexed
2024-05-05T04:22:07.447Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Fiction
literary_form_full
Fiction
primary_isbn
9781565124523
publishDate
2006
2007
2007
publisher
Algonquin Books
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Recorded Books
Recorded Books, Inc
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Recorded Books
Recorded Books, Inc
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Audiobooks
Bildungsromans
Electronic books
Historical fiction
Literature -- Fiction
North Carolina -- Fiction
Bildungsromans
Electronic books
Historical fiction
Literature -- Fiction
North Carolina -- Fiction
title_display
On Agate Hill : a novel
title_full
On Agate Hill : A Novel [electronic resource] / Lee Smith
On Agate Hill : a novel / Lee Smith
On Agate Hill : a novel [electronic resource] / Lee Smith
On Agate Hill by Lee Smith
On Agate Hill : a novel / Lee Smith
On Agate Hill : a novel [electronic resource] / Lee Smith
On Agate Hill by Lee Smith
title_short
On Agate Hill
title_sub
a novel
topic_facet
Electronic books
Literature
Literature
Solr Details Tables
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hoopla:MWT13525123 | Online Hoopla Collection | Online Hoopla | eAudiobook | Audio Books | 1 | false | true | Hoopla | https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/13525123?utm_source=MARC&Lid=hh4435 | Available Online |
record_details
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---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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hoopla:MWT15571847 | eBook | eBook | English | Algonquin Books | 2007 | 1 online resource (384 pages) | ||
ils:.b16855668 | CD Audiobook | Audio Books | English | Recorded Books | p2006 | 12 sound discs (14 hr.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in. | ||
hoopla:MWT13525123 | eAudiobook | Audio Books | Unabridged | English | Recorded Books, Inc | 2006 | 1 online resource (1 audio file (13hr., 56 min.)) : digital. |
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