Along her delivery route, she meets a number of characters including Angeline, a young soon-to-be mother who wants to be able to read to her child Devil John, a moonshiner who doesn’t want his kids to become lazy reading books Loretta, an old woman who is nearly blind, but enjoys Cussy’s visits. Cussy Mary has a tender heart and loves to see her patrons eager for their next loan. Food is scarce while judgment weighs heavy in the pockets of those that can afford it.
The fascinating thing about Cussy’s condition is the moral and very personal choice of whether or not to be cured, to “become white.” Her Black friend and fellow librarian, Queenie, of course, doesn’t have that choice.Īll of this is happening with the backdrop of the rugged Kentucky mountains. However, her experienced discrimination of being non-white and considered “colored” does. In that way, the idea of racism doesn’t apply to Cussy. Cussy has a medical condition that causes her skin to be blue there isn’t a blue race. Richardson has done an incredible amount of research on Appalachian life, culture, and the true story of the “Kentucky Blue People.” I was interested in the way she describes the discrimination Cussy and her father experience, specifically because of racism against people of color and whether or not this directly relates. They are both what the mountain people call “Blues.” Times are especially rough in 1937, but Cussy Mary is lucky to make twenty-eight dollars a month delivering books to the people who live near and far from their Packhorse Library. Cussy Mary Carter and her father live in Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, surrounded by the hollers and mountains of the Appalachian Range. Kim Michele Richardson has written a book that captures discrimination within a culture that’s rarely seen clearly by outsiders. I’m giving it four stars, which I don’t often do.
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