Walking to Gatlinburg

January 11, 2010
A Civil War odyssey in the tradition of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain
and Robert Olmstead’s Coal Black Horse
, Mosher’s latest (after On Kingdom Mountain
), about a Vermont teenager’s harrowing journey south to find his missing-in-action brother, is old-fashioned in the best sense of the word. Seventeen-year-old Morgan Kinneson goes in search of his older brother, Pilgrim, a Union soldier reported MIA at Gettysburg. But first, Morgan accidentally causes the death of a runaway slave he was leading to safety in Canada. In the course of tracking down his missing brother, Morgan is pursued by slave catchers, accompanies an elephant on an Erie Canal showboat, visits the battlefield at Gettysburg, meets an escaped slave who turns out to be the dead slave’s granddaughter, and gets wounded during a mountain feud before learning of Pilgrim’s fate. Complicating matters is a rune stone the dead slave left to Morgan, which could compromise the security of the Underground Railroad if the slave catchers get their hands on it. The story of Morgan’s rite-of-passage through an American arcadia despoiled by war and slavery is an engrossing tale with mass appeal.

February 15, 2010
There are two good reasons to go to Gatlinburg. One is to visit Dolly Parton's theme park. Mosher (On Kingdom Mountain, 2007, etc.) limns the other in this expertly written novel.

Longtime readers of Mosher will not be surprised to find that his latest opens on ground well trod in other novels: the mountain country of northern Vermont, and specifically Kingdom Mountain, his Yoknapatawpha County. Morgan Kinneson is an exceedingly bright 17-year-old who has spent his young life exploring every corner of the mountain, becoming so knowledgeable about the place that he and his older brother Pilgrim had brought the pioneering naturalist Louis Agassiz"to the mountaintop to examine the glacial erratics, boulders brought down from the Far North by the great ice sheet." Things have changed now, for Pilgrim, who had been packed off to college, has joined the Union Army and has now gone missing at the Battle of Gettysburg. Helping a runaway slave make his way north to Canada, Morgan is attacked by mysterious renegades—or are they rebel spies?—who want something of the fugitive's. That something (readers of On Kingdom Mountain might just have a clue as to what it is), and perhaps a curse on his"yallow head" by one of his fallen tormentors, puts Morgan on a run that takes him to the still-fresh battlefield, down the back of the mountains and deep into the Confederacy in search of his missing brother. Morgan battles illness and attendant hallucinations, enjoys a"peaceful interlude in the heart of the land of the Brethren," spends time in the rebel capital, falls in love and otherwise has grand adventures that would seem improbable in lesser hands. And if a long walk through the Civil War–era South seems familiar, consider the author of the echoing book one of those lesser hands by comparison with Mosher, who closes with a grand unexpected moment that, on reflection, makes perfect sense.

We are in the hands of a skilled storyteller, and every word matters. A captivating story, and one that cries for a sequel.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 1, 2010
Late in the Civil War, 17-year-old Morgan Kinneson from northern Vermont gets deeply involved with his family's participation in the Underground Railroad when the slave he's leading toward Canada is murdered. Overwhelmed by remorse (he had wandered away to hunt a moose), he sets off on an odyssey in search of his older brother, Pilgrim, who was reported missing from the Union army. With the slave's murderers on his trail and carrying a mysterious stone he found in the murdered man's pockets, Morgan meets up with a wild variety of characters as his path leads him toward the Great Smokey Mountains. VERDICT A colorful re-creation of the era and a likable and engaging protagonist recommend this book to lovers of classically told adventure tales.Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2010
In this haunting and hallucinatory novel, a young man named Morgan Kinneson trods through the nightmarish landscape of late Civil Warera America. The impetus for his venture is twofold: to find his brother, Pilgrim, who has been missing since the Battle at Gettysburg and to avenge the lynching of an escaped slave who was in his care as the conductor of one of the final legs of the Underground Railroad. Morgans trek turns into a kind of Apocalypse Now journey into the madness of war, but here the heart of darkness is a green-goggled slave breeder and his hired quartet of lunatic murderers, who also happen to be among the novels most compelling (though sadly underexamined) characters. These madmen flip-flop cat-and-mouse roles with Morgan as his quest becomes as much about bloodily ridding the earth of their presence as it is about finding his brother. Historical realism this isnt but it is a violent, often puzzling picaresque with an invigorating take on the Underground Railroad and an unsettling vision of an America despoiled by the War between the States.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)