Sons of Blackbird Mountain

Sons of Blackbird Mountain by Joanne Bischof   352 pages

Welcome to 2018’s first “must read! This is a powerful and haunting novel of family, life and love in 19^th-century Appalachia.

An Irish lass, Aven is the widow of the Benn Norgaard. She’s been through a lot in her short life. She grew up in a workhouse and once she aged out, she was circumstantially forced to marry Benn. Readers don’t see any of her life in Norway, which in my opinion was both good and bad. I was very interested in her prior life, but there were really no opportunities for a lengthy flashback.

She has just traveled across an ocean and traveled more miles than she can count to the foot of Virginia’s Blackbird Mountain. She is expecting to find her late husband’s great-aunt who is raising three boys.  As she begins to trudge along the dusty trail, she encounters a man who only responds with gestures.

Along with a friendly dog, she follows the quiet man up the mountain until she reaches a large red house and a scattering of outbuildings. She learns that great-aunt Dorothe has recently passed and the “kids” are full-grown men.

The men---Jorgan, Haakon and Thor---are each in need of more than what Aven can offer them.

They grow apples on 300 acres; the mortgage almost fulfilled. They make their living selling hard cider to the neighbors. Jorgan keeps the buildings and machinery in perfect working order. Haakon makes the deliveries, but it’s Thor who tends the apple trees.

Jorgan and Haakon are well-drawn characters, complex and shallow at the same time. But it’s Thor who leapt off the page for me.  Deaf and mute, Thor can read lips. He has a hardness and a softness that comes takes center stage depending on what part of the story is being read.

Author Bischof does an excellent job explaining how Thor communicates with other with American Sign Language. It doesn’t interfere with the story and is as a natural part of the story as the plot. Bischof’s prose is beautiful. Sometimes I had to stop and re-read a sentence it was structured so beautifully.

A character-driven story, readers come to know Aven and the brothers as if they were real people, living their lives through good times and bad times. I found lots of gasping moments as the story moves from late summer in 1890 to early fall. 

Of the thirty-two books I have read so far this year, this is by far the best, and the one that will linger in my soul for months to come. Sons of Blackbird Mountain receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.