A Taste of the Sweet Apple: A Memoir (Woodford Reserve Series for Kentucky Literature)

I have not read such a beautiful book since To Kill A Mockingbird and have not read descriptions of a southern family written as well, or better, since The Ponder Heart. Superb writing.

Jo Anna Holt-Watson is a truly wonderful "story teller." Seldom are readers treated to such captivating tales of childhood imagination, without a hint of false pride. In "A Taste of the Sweet Apple: Memoirs," the author is able to hold our attention by graphically producing a setting in rural central Kentucky, Woodford County, that calls on figments of all of the reader's senses: the farm sounds of the "skid" being pulled by the mule, the vision of the heavy mist over the Bluegrass at dawn, the smell of stables laden with manure, and, of course, the almost indescribable taste of chewing tobacco, when it is first surreptitiously wedged between cheek and gum by a seven year old girl. Ultimately, this is a heart warming story of a child's love. Almost too innocently written, Pee Wee Watson has a brilliant flair with words that will actually make you laugh out loud in one instant and become 'teary-eyed' in the next. Her 'Memoirs' of her life on the farm in the '40s recalls a tender relationship with 'the hired help,' whom she brazenly persuades the reader into loving as much as she assures that she probably really did. Her tender feelings toward these simplistic, but ardently faithful 'keepers,' is not wasted on wishy-washy endearments, but rather is skillfully woven into her story, as told in the first person by a genuine tom-boy and sometimes romantic, but always head-strong girl. This is a 'must read' for all who crave a clever yarn by an excellent spinner, ... from whom I predict, ... we will hear again. -- Thomas S. Markham, Lookout Mountain, GA -- A devotee of Southern literature