Light novel delves into family, faith and love

Franklin Roosevelt’s famous remark—“There is nothing to fear but fear itself”—contains both truth and the possibility for broad application. At one time or another, all of us face the fear created by an uncertain future. Moving to an unfamiliar city, tackling a new job, marriage, children, the death of a spouse or a loved one: these and other life-changing events rip us out of our routines, and we find ourselves on unfamiliar pathways, no longer certain of what lies ahead. Very often fear of that future, rather than the future itself, can, as Roosevelt knew, dominate our quest.

In “Down By The River: A Smoky Mountain Novel,” author Lin Stepp creates Grace Conley, a Nashville widow and mother of grown children, who decides to move to the small town of Townsend to open a bed-and-breakfast. Grace is an intrepid woman whose talents range from cooking to crafts, but her adult children cannot see her in this light. It is their fears and subsequent anger about the move that Grace must work to overcome.

Grace’s life is further complicated by Jack Teague, the realtor who sells her the Oakley Bed and Breakfast, which Grace renames the Mimosa Inn. Though married once—he has two daughters, abandoned, as was Jack, by their mother—Jack has a reputation as a playboy in the small town. When Grace first meets him, he is wrapped in the arms of a woman young enough to be his daughter. Despite this inauspicious beginning, both Grace and Jack feel pulled toward each other.

At the same time, Grace’s youngest daughter, Margaret, comes to live with her while waiting to return to college and her musical training. Margaret is moody and temperamental, and her repartee with Jack provides some of the book’s comedic highlights. Eventually, Margaret finds herself falling in love with the young minister in town, whom she has mistakenly judged a bumpkin. Stepp deftly juxtaposes the changes in the lives of mother and daughter, and how both, Margaret in particular, overcome their fears of commitment and romance. 

Where Stepp excels in “Down By The River” is in her creation of her characters. The book is, as the subtitle tells us, a “Smoky Mountain novel,” because Stepp stresses both the traditional values of our mountains—family, faith, an attachment to the land—while at the same time mixing in the realism of the present. Jack Teague is particularly well drawn as a slick real estate agent who, while seemingly interested in bedding every beautiful woman he meets, is also protective of his daughters and his extended family. Like a number of Southern novels, the town has its eccentrics—one man, dubbed the “Crazy Man” by the townspeople, leaves weird notes of warning and advice in various mailboxes, and an older woman claims the gift of prophecy—but most of Stepp’s characters are, like Jack Teague, a blend of the new and old cultures.

“Down By The River” is not without flaws. A scene near the end of the book, set in Los Angeles at the home of Jack Teague’s former wife Celine, depicts Celine as being unbelievably irresponsible in her treatment of her two daughters. Without Jack’s knowledge, she flies them to the West Coast and then virtually abandons them while hosting a wild party. 

Stepp’s depiction of Grace Conley at work also is faulty. When Stepp shows us Jack Teague in his office, we get a sense of his job as a real-estate agent. Stepp shows us how he goes through his day and even what calculations he makes when selling property. But the author seems to have little sense of what it means to operate a bed-and-breakfast. We are told frequently that Grace can get away on a weekend because no visitors are expected, which simply doesn’t happen during tourist season. At one point, she drops everything and travels to California. Stepp tells us a little of Grace cooking for the guests, but nothing of the hard work involved in running such an enterprise. Grace even opens a shop for the sale of her crafts, but seems to have such large blocks of free time that the reader can only conclude that she is independently wealthy (which she is) and is merely running the bed and breakfast as an amusement.

Then there is the young minister, Vincent Westbrooke. He is twenty-five years old, and has spent most of his young adulthood in school, but halfway through the book we learn that he has written fourteen books of Bible studies and is a well-known lecturer. Again, these achievements take away from the realism of the character.

Speaking of faith, some readers of “Down By The River” may also be put off by the intrusion of religious belief into the story. Rejecting the story on this basis would be unfortunate, for Stepp accurately depicts the varieties of religious faith in Appalachian culture in the twenty-first century. Nothing is forced here: Grace, Jack, his daughters, and others all display varying degrees of faith, as do the people of the Smokies today.

If you’re looking for a light, affectionate treatment of life in a small mountain town, “Down By The River” should fit the bill.