There are a lot of ideas to mine from Cold Sassy Tree.

(Meanwhile, the town Baptists aren’t overfond of the Methodists in town, and the feeling is mutual.) The people of Cold Sassy, Georgia would like to think they’re upright Christian folks, but they look down on black people, the mill workers and farmers, and people from north of the Mason-Dixon line. There were only a few chapters where I didn’t come across, all unawares, a slap in the face from racism, classism, sexism, or religious hypocrisy. But because it’s set in the American south, there are some dark undercurrents in the story. On the surface, Cold Sassy Tree is a comedy of manners.

Will’s mother and aunt are constantly worried about what everyone will think. If someone steps off the path, they are gossiped about and, if they don’t have enough clout, shunned. One gets the impression that there is only one acceptable way to live in Cold Sassy. As the novel rolls along, he ponders the town, his mother, and his aunt’s reaction to Blakeslee’s remarriage. He sympathizes with and rather enjoys his grandfather’s antics, but he has to live with his mother who is mostly horrified by her father’s actions. Will, for the most part, is caught in the middle. Right up until the poignant end to the novel, Blakeslee will scandalize people left and right throughout the town of Cold Sassy. This wouldn’t be so scandalous except that Grandpa Blakeslee’s first wife died just three weeks prior and that his new wife is a “damnyankee.” It doesn’t take long for us to learn that Blakeslee’s chief delight is tweaking the town’s nose. Will’s grandfather has just gotten remarried. That said, I can understand why the other blurbs of this book call it “one of the best portraits of small town southern life ever written” (Pat Conroy)-though I have to point out that this book is very much a portrait of white southern life.Ĭold Sassy Tree opens in July of 1906 with a scandal. While there are parts of this book that made me laugh, Cold Sassy Tree mostly made me angry or sad. The blurbs on the front and back of the edition I read told me that this was a hilarious book. Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns, tells the story of the summer that Will stopped being a child.

For Hoyt Willis Tweedy, that time is the summer, fall, and winter of 1906. For some people, there are short periods in their lives when they have to do a lot of growing up, very quickly.

Cold sassy tree reviews