Feeling festive this fall? Check out our new title picks for the season.

Book Summary and Reviews of The Road from Gap Creek by Robert Morgan

The Road from Gap Creek by Robert Morgan

The Road from Gap Creek

by Robert Morgan

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Aug 2013, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

When Robert Morgan's novel Gap Creek was published in 1999, it became an Oprah Book Club Selection and an instant national bestseller, attracting hundreds of thousands of readers to its story of a marriage begun with love and hope at the turn of the twentieth century. Set in the Appalachian South, it followed Julie and Hank Richards as they struggled through the first year and a half of their union.

But what, readers asked, of the years that followed? What did the future hold for these memorable characters?

The Road from Gap Creek holds the answers to these questions, as Robert Morgan takes us back into their lives, telling their story and the stories of their children through the eyes of their youngest daughter, Annie. Through Annie, we watch as the four Richards children create their own histories, lives that include both triumphs and hardship in the face of the Great Depression and then World War II. Much more than a sequel, The Road from Gap Creek is a moving and indelible portrait of people and their world in a time of unprecedented change, an American story told by one of our country's most acclaimed writers. 

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Robert Morgan returns to his bestselling Gap Creek characters, the Richards family, as well as the Peace family from his earlier Appalachian story, The Truest Pleasure." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. Morgan pens an eloquent story of stoicism and pain, endurance and courage, ending as all life will, with death and birth. A moving, lyrical saga from a time so distant, yet so near." - Kirkus

"In The Road From Gap Creek [Morgan] delivers another powerhouse novel of his people, with their virtues and failings, wins and losses, loves and sorrows." - Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone

This information about The Road from Gap Creek was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cathryn Conroy

A Story of Family Love and Survival
This sequel to "Gap Creek" tells the story of Julie and Hank's marriage years after they moved away from Gap Creek. They are now the parents of four grown (or nearly grown) children, and the life they live is based in large part on what they can raise and grow on their farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Taking place in the 1920s and '30s, the story of this one family serves a microcosm of the larger events taking place in the country and the world—from the booming '20s to deadly epidemics, from the Depression to World War II. While they are dirt poor, they are rich in love, and that is what makes this story just bloom.

Writing in the vernacular of the time and place, author Robert Morgan has created a tale that rings true and authentic.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Robert Morgan Author Biography

Robert Morgan was raised on his family's farm in the North Carolina mountains. He is the author of eleven books of poetry, three books of nonfiction, and eight books of fiction, including the bestselling novel Gap Creek. He lives in Ithaca, New York, where he teaches at Cornell University. He won the Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature in 2007.

Author Interview
Link to Robert Morgan's Website

Other books by Robert Morgan at BookBrowse
  • Gap Creek jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more historical fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Intermezzo
    Intermezzo
    by Sally Rooney
    In 2022, Sally Rooney delivered a lecture that later ran in The Paris Review, in which she stated ...
  • Book Jacket: Final Cut
    Final Cut
    by Charles Burns
    Illustrator and writer Charles Burns is no stranger to the horror circuit. Most prominently known ...
  • Book Jacket: Season of the Swamp
    Season of the Swamp
    by Yuri Herrera
    Though he will go on to become President, reformer, and national hero of Mexico, in 1853 Benito Ju&#...
  • Book Jacket: Playground
    Playground
    by Richard Powers
    The primary narrator of Richard Powers' latest novel, Playground, is Todd Keane, who at 57 years old...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

  • Book Jacket

    The Bog Wife
    by Kay Chronister

    Five West Virginia siblings unearth secrets after the rupture of a supernatural bargain tying their fate to their land.

Who Said...

A book may be compared to your neighbor...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.