Carrie Marie Mullins is a hot-lick fiddler in a bluegrass band; and, like her, the author ``puts English on the melody'' in this lyrically told first novel. The daughter of a jazzman who died a tawdry death in a Florida motel room, Carrie followed her music to Lexington, Ky., when she was 18. She has gotten ahead on wits and elbow grease, choosing as a father for her child a transient of good humor and genes and fitting the idea of all-woman band around the edges of her life. Cap Dunlap is a can't-be-had guitarist with whom Carrie is silently obsessed. After he asks her to sit in with his band, Cap and Carrie struggle with unspoken desire, and she's daydreaming about him when her five-year-old, enchanting daughter Molly Snow careens down the driveway and is killed by a truck. Protective of the emotionally friable Carrie, Cap entrusts her to Ona and Ruth Barkley, feisty old sisters-in-law on a hardscrabble farm. Carrie's soul-tearing grief, regret, ambivalence about the future and resurrected inner strength are rendered in unstintingly pain-filled, exquisite prose. As in Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World, the events of this story are searing, but the writing is like a plaintive, unforgettable song, and the book is not to be missed. (Feb.)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Bluegrass singer and single mother Carrie Mullins loves three things: her daughter, Molly; playing fiddle in the Hawktown Road band; and the band's lead guitarist, the impossibly handsome heartbreaker Cap Dunlap. When Molly is killed in an accident, Carrie is unable to find pleasure in her music or Cap. Only after Carrie spends time with two older women, Cap's grandmother and his great aunt, do her emotional wounds begin to heal. It's to this first novelist's credit that she does not give in to the temptation of providing a happily-ever-after ending. She allows Carrie the time and space to do her grieving and realistically portrays the process of the painfully slow recovery from the death of a child. With a writing sytle as melodic and haunting as a good bluegrass song, this book belongs in most public libraries.-Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Opening in a haze much like the one experienced by the main character, country singer Carrie Marie Mullins, Taylor-Hall's novel clears up a bit as the reason for Carrie's depression becomes clear. She has lost her young daughter in a tragic accident and lives in the shadow of her own childhood, which was marked by her father's suicide. She is slowly recovering under the care of two elderly women who keep her busy with housework and ask no probing questions. Meanwhile, her band needs their amazing country fiddler back, and her chance at stardom hangs in the balance. Taylor-Hall has composed a beautiful, moody novel with a character that will live in readers' hearts.
There's music in Come and Go, Molly Snow ... but something grander, too, something almost sublime: the song of a woman's loss and pain, the song of her redemption.
Mighty fine.... Mary Ann Taylor-Hall's real achievement in her first novel is to bring us inside a grieving woman's mind and enrich us with her grief.
Washington Post Book World
This vernacular and gorgeous book very simply and without frills takes it all on, from the hilarious to the shattering, and leaves you with a lingering, hard-to place tune in your ears.
Lush and loaded as a bluegrass lick.... Come and Go, Molly Snow is as contagious as the music it describes.
Recommended reading.... One's interest is consistently held by the sheer wealth of feeling that the author's mellow prose sets flowing through the pages.
In writing of great beauty and honesty, Taylor-Hall has achieved that rare thing, a genuine evocation of a mother's grief. One reads this novel with a kind of dull ache in the chest.
Music spills out of this story.... The language is fresh, strong, and as appealing as Carrie Mullins.
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
A remarkable first novel.... [Carrie's] passion fills this novel with lyrical intensity. Her spirit leaps from the narrative like an inspired improvisation.
This book is more finely crafted than a wooden instrument and more deeply honest than a mountain song. It picked me up and won't let go of me.... it made me even more in love with the world.
Taylor Hall's book, as it turns out, is like those golden peaches, to be savored time and time again.
Journal of Appalachian Studies
"Lush and loaded as a bluegrass lick.... Come and Go, Molly Snow is as contagious as the music it describes." — Philadelphia Enquirer
"Music spills out of this story.... The language is fresh, strong, and as appealing as Carrie Mullins." — San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"Recommended reading.... One's interest is consistently held by the sheer wealth of feeling that the author's mellow prose sets flowing through the pages." — New Yorker
"A remarkable first novel.... [Carrie's] passion fills this novel with lyrical intensity. Her spirit leaps from the narrative like an inspired improvisation." — People
"In writing of great beauty and honesty, Taylor-Hall has achieved that rare thing, a genuine evocation of a mother's grief. One reads this novel with a kind of dull ache in the chest." — New York Newsday
"This book is more finely crafted than a wooden instrument and more deeply honest than a mountain song. It picked me up and won't let go of me.... it made me even more in love with the world." — Pam Houston
"There's music in Come and Go, Molly Snow ... but something grander, too, something almost sublime: the song of a woman's loss and pain, the song of her redemption." — Los Angeles Times
"This vernacular and gorgeous book very simply and without frills takes it all on, from the hilarious to the shattering, and leaves you with a lingering, hard-to0place tune in your ears." — Elle
"Mighty fine.... Mary Ann Taylor-Hall's real achievement in her first novel is to bring us inside a grieving woman's mind and enrich us with her grief." — Washington Post Book World
"Exquisite... As in Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World, the events of this story are searing, but the writing is like a plaintive, unforgettable song.... Not to be missed." — Publisher's Weekly
