The Truest Pleasure

Be sure to read Gap Creek first and Truest Pleasure will make more sense.Morgan follows the lives of Julie and Hank who get married after knowing each other one month back in the 1920s and set out a life together in the mountains of North Carolina. They endure numerous hardships and learn to live together, not always getting along. Their first child is born a month early and soon dies, but they have other children and life moves on.If you are against reading about religion, this is not a book you would enjoy. Julie seeks a religious experience by attending church services where she speaks in tongues and is led to "roll on the floor." This displeases her husband and sets up a major conflict in the story as they have two sons-Muir and Moody. Muir becomes a preacher and Moody becomes a bootlegger.Julie's life is filled with the hardest work you can imagine and, although she has true pleasure for a while, her life turns tragic.I totally recommend Morgan's books, but realze that not everyone will enjoy the long descriptive paragraphs that are awesome, but that do seem to be there to stretch the length of the books.

The homespun and rather hillbilly-ish character of Ginny Peace is skillfully crafted and interesting. She is given to Pentecostal transports and likes nothing better than to attend a camp meeting and succumb to the pure spirit, speaking in tongues and experiencing spiritual blackouts, as it were. Her husband Tom is a sort of plodding, earth-bound quiet type, who is most fulfilled when tilling the land, planting crops, and selling the fruits of his labors. I was actually drawn much more to Tom than to Ginny, although she is somewhat larger than life. Domestic scenes such as the canning of peaches were remarkable in their humble detail. But I experienced a sense of pathos when I saw Ginny essentially riding roughshod over Tom -- not in a mean way, really (although there were flashes of this), but in a subtle, belittling way. The epiphanies of the book come too little too late. In conclusion, although the book is very well done, I wouldn't call it uplifting.

I read Gap Creek before I read The Truest Pleasure - both are definitely recommended reading. Stories of rustic folk living in the mountains - told exactly how I like a story to be told, rich with details of everyday life - what they ate, what they wore, how they worked and lived every day. Excellent reading.

I judge a book good or bad by how quickly I read it. As with the other books of Robert Morgan's, I could not set this book aside. Anytime I had a spare moment, I would read. If there was anything not to like about the book, it would be the ending. I'm not sure I totally understood the ending. His endings seem to have no climax as tho life itself just goes on. The book is well worth reading, though!

Leaving Love (Georgia Low Country Fiction)  The great thing about amazon is that I have the opportunity to review a book by Robert Morgan. To me the book was everything the reader is liable to read on the back cover, of the jacket such as, 'insightful, 'he is in touch with his feminine side, 'a pleasant read, 'intimately connected to his characters,' etc. Well I agree with all those platitudes and mine are truthful since I actually read the book. Marshall l Dell

This is quite a love story! Written by a man, from a woman's perspective, it offers a different view of marriage and emotions. Sibling rivalries, family traditions, religious differences, educational backgrounds, financial hardships and time honored work ethics are woven skillfully into a life journey of sorrow and joy. The book is a quick read and will remind us that the "good ole days" were not and that relationships are all that matter... in the end.

It is a eye opener to what is the most important thing in life. Our God, family, and country. Have when to a Pentecost church and seen and feel the closest to God . I could understand how she thought that was more important. The fear of not knowing and understanding this was Tom's . He showed love the only way he new how. Thank you for the in sight..

Very intensive, Ineresting view of the South after the Cival War.Hardworking people clawing to survive. The writer sits your right in the room with the people and you search your own soul for good and bad character traits. I have read other books by this author and that is the main reason for my selection