A review by real_life_reading
The Ballad of Tom Dooley by Sharyn McCrumb
2.0
I was really hoping that this book would be as great as the title made it seem, but I was disappointed. It's hard for me to get into a book where the narrator is so past feeling, cruel, and conniving. The book is set in the post Civil War South, and people are living in hard times. So it stands to reason that the 20-something narrator, having had to take care of herself through the war by prostitution, is hardened to others and their situations. However, she purposefully wants to make other people suffer as she has suffered, and her primary target in the novel is her beautiful cousin Ann.
Then there's these strange inserts written in the voice of Zebulon Vance, the man who is a lawyer for Ann and her lover, Tom Dula, after they are accused of murder. His piece in the novel doesn't really add anything to the story line, other than the very last bit when he gives us more information than the narrator Pauline gives in her story. It's pretty ineffective and distracting to the story line.
Then there's these strange inserts written in the voice of Zebulon Vance, the man who is a lawyer for Ann and her lover, Tom Dula, after they are accused of murder. His piece in the novel doesn't really add anything to the story line, other than the very last bit when he gives us more information than the narrator Pauline gives in her story. It's pretty ineffective and distracting to the story line.