Category Archives: Price, Charles

Charles Price. Where the Water-Dogs Laughed: The Story of the Great Bear. Boone, N.C.: High Country Publishers, 2003.

This is the fourth novel in a series of loosely-tied books based in the North Carolina mountains. Set in the early twentieth century, Where the Water-Dogs Laughed follows George Weatherby, a northern logging executive who has moved to North Carolina to exploit the state’s rich timber resources. Weatherby hires and befriends Absalom Middleton, a local man, and charges himself with reforming the rough-hewn Middleton. One of the key characters of the book is Yan-e’gwa, a large bear which is the subject of Cherokee legend.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Historical, Mountains, Price, Charles

Charles Price. The Cock’s Spur. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 2002.

In the mountains of western North Carolina in the 1880s, moonshining and cockfighting are a regular part of the rough-and-tumble life. Webb Darling, the self-proclaimed king of the moonshiners, rules the region from his hilltop cabin. In contrast to the cruel and conniving Darling is a former slave named Hamby McFee who dreams of making enough money to escape from his life in the mountains, where he still farms the same land he worked as a slave. Unfortunately, the only chance Hamby has at making enough money to leave may be to win it from Darling.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Coast, Historical, Mountains, Piedmont, Price, Charles

Charles Price. Freedom’s Altar. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 1999.

Set in the violent, lawless days just after the Civil War, this novel explores the deeply complicated questions about how the South would recover and adjust to new ideas about race and class. Daniel McFee, a former slave who had fought for the Union, has returned home to western North Carolina to become a sharecropper on land owned by his old master, Madison Curtis. Despite good intentions, both Curtis and McFee have trouble adjusting to this new relationship. It’s especially hard to make any meaningful progress when the whole region is overrun with violent vigilantes all too willing to take matters into their own hands. The novel is based in part on the author’s family history. Freedom’s Altar won the 1999 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for the best novel by a North Carolinian.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1999, Historical, Mountains, Price, Charles