Sharyn McCrumb

• Born: February 26, 1948
• Place of Birth: Wilmington, North Carolina

• TYPES OF PLOT: Amateur sleuth; cozy
• PRINCIPAL SERIES: Elizabeth MacPherson, 1984–2000; Ballad, 1990–2017

Contribution

Sharyn McCrumb, who considers herself primarily a storyteller, has increasingly used her mystery novels as vehicles to portray a southern/Appalachian culture where contact with modern issues and problems results in various kinds of violence. Thus, she has stretched the boundaries of the mystery novel, emphasizing the interaction of culture and characters and exploring complex relationships within families or groups of close friends.

McCrumb’s novels have won numerous awards. Lovely in Her Bones (1985) and The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (1992) were named Best Appalachian Novel by the Appalachian Writers Association in 1986 and 1992, respectively. Several of her novels have been selected as Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and her fiction has won three Agatha Awards (She Walks These Hills, 1994; If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him, 1995; and “A Wee Doch and Doris”), two Anthony Awards (She Walks These Hills and “The Monster of Glamis”), the Nero Wolfe Award (She Walks These Hills), and the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America (Bimbos of the Death Sun, 1987). She also received the 2006 People’s Choice Award for Fiction, given by the Library of Virginia and the James River Writers, for St. Dale (2005). Her novels have been translated into Dutch, German, Italian, and Japanese. She also earned the Virginia Woman in History Award in 2008, the Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Southern Literature in 2014, and the Patricia Winn Award for Southern Fiction for King’s Mountain (2013) in 2015. She was awarded the Woman of the Arts Award by the National Daughters of the American Revolution and the Literary Merit Award from the West Virginia Library Association in 2017.

McCrumb has also written many short stories for various anthologies, including her own short story collection, Foggy Mountain Breakdown (1997). During the COVID-19 pandemic, she chronicled a neighborhood raccoon through social media for her own amusement. She later published the postings in a small series titled The Marvin Chronicles.

Biography

Sharyn McCrumb was born Sharyn Elaine Arwood in Wilmington, North Carolina. Her father, Frank Arwood, was chairman of the Elementary Education Department at East Carolina University. McCrumb acknowledged the formative influence of his storytelling when she dedicated Lovely in Her Bones to him. His bedtime stories were installments from the Iliad (c. 750 B.C.E.; English translation, 1611), but he also told her about the circuit-riding preachers who were their ancestors (the Arrowoods and the McCourys). Helen Arwood, McCrumb’s mother, grew up in the eastern part of North Carolina, and McCrumb’s grandmother told her stories about North Carolina during the Civil War. McCrumb's two great-grandfathers were circuit preachers throughout the Smoky Mountains, and she attributes her storytelling to their memory. Furthermore, many of the family legends have made their way into McCrumb’s novels, especially the Ballad series.

McCrumb completed a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and communications at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1970, and by 1976 she had become a professional writer. She also took graduate classes in speech and theater at Wake Forest University in 1977 and earned a master’s degree in English at Virginia Tech in 1985.

On January 9, 1982, McCrumb married David Kenneth McCrumb, an environmental engineer. The McCrumbs had two children, Spencer and Laura. In 1983 Sharyn McCrumb became a member of the Appalachian Studies faculty at Virginia Tech.

McCrumb is deeply rooted in Appalachia and the South, and so are the characters and settings in her novels. In interviews, she has noted the regional distinctions that make different parts of the South unique, and throughout her work she leans into these distinctions to explore the historical and cultural depths of these regions.

Analysis

The early Elizabeth MacPherson novels by Sharyn McCrumb emphasize astute observation and deductive reasoning as Elizabeth unmasks murderers using her academic training in anthropology, her skill in dealing with people, and her familiarity with the mores of both mountain and flatland cultures. Increasingly, though, as the series progresses, Elizabeth’s cases deal with issues of blood ties, family tradition, links to the land, and timeless domestic problems.

The interrelationship of past and present also figures prominently in the Ballad series. Nora Bonesteel, who possesses “the Sight,” intuitively knows that historical events often reflect the same emotions and personality traits seen in modern actions. The more pragmatic Sheriff Spencer Arrowood reluctantly learns to accept Nora’s authority in these matters, though he continues to prefer demonstrable evidence.

Throughout McCrumb's standalone novels, short stories, and essays, the inextricable connection to the land and the history and mysticism of that land is poignant. Many of her stories involve ghosts and spirits and intertwine American folklore, creating mythical yet familiar settings of the past that her readership can relate to. In The Unquiet Grave (2017), she retells a real-life mystery, the case of the Greenbrier Ghost. In this work, McCrumb combines meaningful research with character narratives that bring this historical trial and case to life for readers.

Lovely in Her Bones

Lovely in Her Bones explores themes of personal relationships and ethnic identity. Elizabeth MacPherson, who has finished a sociology degree, still has not chosen a career when she meets Milo Gordon, her brother Bill’s roommate and the research assistant for Alex Lerche, a forensic anthropologist specializing in Native American studies. Elizabeth and Milo are attracted to each other, but she is also intrigued by folk medicine and eventually by Lerche’s process of determining the ethnic identity of Native American groups.

Comfrey Stecoah, a Cullowhee leader, enlists Lerche’s help in proving that the Cullowhees are a Native American tribe and thus entitled to federal protection for their land. Lerche agrees to examine the ancient graves primarily because this project provides a temporary escape from his wife, Tessa, and a chance for trysts with Mary Clare, one of his graduate students. Elizabeth decides to join the group, primarily for the chance to meet the medicine woman, Amelanchier Stecoah, who is Comfrey’s mother.

The project is opposed by Bevel Harkness, whose family owns land where a strip mine may be located, but it is also plagued by dissent among Lerche’s group. Lerche is so involved in his scientific research that he cannot relate well to other people, as both women in his life discover. Milo is similarly distant toward Elizabeth, and Victor Bassington, one of the undergraduates, annoys everyone with his grandiose lies.

When destruction of the project computer does not deter Lerche, he is murdered. Because the sheriff is unavailable, the investigation is conducted by Deputy Sheriff Barnes, who quickly calls in the local Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. Although Milo believes Harkness is the murderer, Barnes’s primary suspects are Tessa and Mary Clare because both have recently been rejected by Lerche. The subsequent murder of Victor changes the way the investigators view the crime and provides Elizabeth the clue she needs to unmask the murderer.

In this novel, the primary focus is the two murders; the themes of personal conflict and racial identity are present merely to suggest motivation for the crime, though there is some indication that both Elizabeth and Milo learn from this experience.

If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him

Though part of the MacPherson series, If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him appears to begin McCrumb’s transition to the Ballad series, developing themes that recur in those novels. The overall subject is marital conflict and the violence that sometimes results when marriages end. McCrumb drew the novel’s title from a battered woman’s comment: “If I’d killed him when I met him, I’d be out of prison now.”

Elizabeth—still reeling from her husband’s death—is an investigator for the law firm of her brother Bill and his partner, Amy Powell “A. P.” Hill. A. P. is hired to defend socialite Eleanor Royden for murdering her former husband and his new wife. Eleanor has openly entered the home of her former husband, Jeb, and shot him and his new wife. She has proudly proclaimed what she has done, and A. P. must save her from the death penalty. Compounding the problem is the fact that Jeb was a prominent lawyer and that the entire legal establishment has closed ranks against Eleanor. Even women who supposedly were Eleanor’s friends refuse to testify for her, and most of the men suggest that she simply did not understand appropriate behavior for supplanted wives.

Meanwhile, Bill, initially hired to sue Donna Jean Morgan’s husband, ends up trying to clear Donna Jean of poisoning her husband. Donna Jean hired Bill because her husband, Chevry, a part-time preacher, declared that God told him to take a second wife. Chevry and sixteen-year-old Tanya Faith knelt in the back of his carpet truck and promised to be man and wife, then Tanya moved into the Morgans’ home. Donna Jean refuses to file for divorce because that violates her beliefs, so Bill sues Tanya Faith for criminal conversion (adultery with Donna Jean’s husband). When Chevry dies of arsenic poisoning, suspicion falls on Donna Jean, in part because her great-grandmother, Lucy Todhunter, was suspected of poisoning her husband, Philip, after the Civil War.

The prologue, which serves to indicate the timeless nature of marital conflict, describes the death of Philip Todhunter, depicted by his widow’s attorney as a wealthy Yankee who married genteel and land-poor Lucy Avery soon after the Civil War. When Philip died of arsenic poisoning, Lucy was tried for murder but acquitted because no one could determine how she could poison him without making anyone else ill. Months later, Lucy gave birth to Todhunter’s son (Donna Jean’s grandfather), but she died soon after. The family declined in wealth and prestige, but Lucy became a local legend.

Although Elizabeth realizes her job in the law firm is intended primarily as a distraction, she solves the mystery of both poisonings. During the investigation, she and Bill must cope not only with the dissolution of their parents’ marriage but also with their mother’s semifacetious claim that she has become a “political” lesbian.

The novel closes with Elizabeth’s last letter to her deceased husband, Cameron. She asserts that they were lucky their marriage did not end in boredom or hatred. She declares herself free to move on with her life and her career as a forensic anthropologist.

If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

Traditional ballads play major roles in McCrumb’s Ballad series, and folk ballads are the source of important clues in If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O (1990). Peggy Muryan, a semifamous folk singer, has moved to town. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood initially is attracted to her, perhaps because he seems to associate her with everything he missed during the era when folk music was popular and when he was a high school senior.

Spencer’s deputy Martha Ayers, who is organizing a class reunion at the local high school, arranges for Spencer to present a plaque in memory of his brother Cal and two other local men killed in Vietnam. Martha has unresolved issues with her high school classmates, and Spencer still feels ambivalent about the memory of his supposedly heroic brother and is convinced that both his mother and his former wife consider him inferior to Cal.

Spencer’s association with Peggy becomes professional when she becomes the object of harassment, possibly by a Vietnam veteran. A series of animal mutilations culminates in the murder of a high school girl who looks like the young Peggy. Initially, Spencer handles the case as he thinks his predecessor, Nelse Miller, would have, but he gains self-confidence as his investigation progresses.

This novel establishes Spencer as a major character in the Ballad series. As he investigates the threats Peggy is receiving, Spencer begins to understand how the Vietnam experience directly and indirectly changed not only the men who fought there but also American society as a whole.

The Rosewood Casket

The Rosewood Casket (1996) explores characteristic McCrumb themes: family ties, love of the land, and individuals’ links to family and community history. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood’s responsibilities tie him to all three elements. He must carry out Randall Stargill’s dying wish that all his sons come home to build his coffin, and later Spencer must try to mediate between the Stallards, who own a prime piece of mountain farmland, and Frank Whitescarver, who holds their mortgage and wants to develop the land. Finally, he must help Nora Bonesteel reconcile the Stargill family’s historical guilt.

There are two rosewood caskets. The first is the one Randall wants his sons to build for his burial; the other is the small casket Randall made and gave to Nora Bonesteel when they were young lovers. By bringing the small casket, which contains a child’s skeleton, to be buried with Randall, Nora sets in motion the resolution of an old mystery. When both Randall and Nora were small children, Randall’s stepsister Fayre disappeared, and because Nora possesses “the Sight,” for many years she has known what actually happened to the girl. Threatened by her knowledge, Randall ended their relationship and married someone else. Now, Nora releases Randall by helping to arrange a proper burial for Fayre.

Randall has left written instructions for his four sons, whose lives have followed totally different paths. Robert Lee, the eldest, is a salesperson who believes his father has always been disappointed in him; his wife, Lilah, prays for a miracle to convince him of his success. The second, Garrett, is an Army officer, but he too believes he has failed, primarily because he was unable to prevent a fellow soldier’s rape of his wife, Debba. The third, Charles Martin, is a country singer. Financially, he has been more successful than his brothers, but he has not been able to sustain an emotional attachment. When he returns to bury Randall, he is accompanied by his girlfriend Kelley and her daughter Kayla, but the relationship does not seem likely to endure. The youngest son, Clayton, has chosen not to pursue fame or financial success. He lives simply, and his only job is giving schoolchildren nature tours and talks about frontier life. To build the casket as Randall instructed, these men must learn to cooperate as brothers, burying their antagonism toward each other and coming to terms with their long-suppressed resentment of their dead brother, Dwayne.

While building their father’s casket, the Stargills also discuss the future of their father’s farm. Two of the brothers consider the land their family heritage and want to keep it, but the other two are eager to sell to a developer like Whitescarver. Their neighbor, Dovey Stallard, is determined to hang on to her family’s land, however, even if she has to shoot Whitescarver. McCrumb suggests a parallel between Dovey and Nanyehi “Nancy” Ward, the female Cherokee chief who also fought unsuccessfully to keep the mountain land for her people.

Principal Series Characters:

• Elizabeth MacPherson is clever and articulate and engages in highly allusive verbal sparring with her brother Bill and cousin Geoffrey. The series traces Elizabeth’s personal and professional life as she solves a variety of cases and also falls in love, marries, and is widowed.
• Spencer Arrowood has been elected sheriff, but he still feels inferior to his predecessor, Nelse Miller, and his brother Cal, the football hero who died in Vietnam. His self-confidence grows as the series progresses. Spencer sometimes expresses an ironic view of events, but the Arrowood series lacks the humor found in the MacPherson novels.
• Nora Bonesteel has “the Sight,” and although Spencer admits that she sometimes possesses information that cannot be explained rationally, he has little faith in her powers. In the early Arrowood novels, Nora primarily serves to advise other characters, but in the later novels, she becomes increasingly central to the plot.

Bibliography

Austin, Jonathan. “The Marvin Chronicles.” Smoky Mountain Living, 1 Aug. 2021, www.smliv.com/stories/the-marvin-chronicles/. Accessed 23 Aug. 2024.

Dyer, Joyce, ed. Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1998.

Holland-Toll, Linda J. “Bridges Over and Bedrock Beneath: The Role of Ballads in Sharyn McCrumb’s Ballad Novels.” The Journal of American Culture 29, no. 3 (September, 2006): 337-345.

Holloway, Kimberly, ed. From a Race of Storytellers: Essays on the Ballad Novels of Sharyn McCrumb. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2003.

Kirk, Stephen. Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia. Chapel Hill, N.C.: John F. Blair, 2004.

Lindsay, Elizabeth Blakesley, ed. Great Women Mystery Writers. 2d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2007.

McCrumb, Sharyn. Sharyn McCrumb: New York Times Bestselling Author. www.sharynmccrumb.com. Accessed 23 Aug. 2024.

Vande Brake, Katherine. How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2001.