Cold Sassy Tree, published in 1984, is one tall glass of sweet Southern storytelling. With strong themes of love, compassion, spirituality, and family (with more than a dash of humor and gossip), it’s easy to see why this historical fiction novel was a bestseller in its time.
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I read Cold Sassy Tree as part of the 2023 Thoughtful Reading Challenge. Because May is packed with so many graduations, May’s challenge was to read a book published in the year you graduated from high school or college. Talk about a trip down memory lane! Also published in 1984 (the year I graduated from high school): The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Hunt for Red October, and Neuromancer.
Cold Sassy Tree takes place in 1906 and is narrated by 14-year-old Will Tweedy, a resident of Cold Sassy, Georgia (named for the sassy-frass trees that provide cool shade). Will is a smart prankster whose shenanigans often earn him a whipping from his dad and disappointment from his mom. But he’s the apple of his grandpa’s (E. Rucker Blakeslee’s) eye, and the feeling is mutual. Will and his grandparents are very close.
At the beginning of Cold Sassy Tree, Will’s beloved granny, Miss Mattie Lou, passes away from a stroke. Grandpa is distraught – their love was strong. However, three weeks later he announces his engagement to Miss Love Simpson, who works for him as a hat maker in his general store.
The town of Cold Sassy is scandalized!!! It was traditional during this time to spend a year mourning the death of a family member. By breaking with this tradition, Grandpa provided some juicy grist for the town’s very active rumor mill. Miss Mattie Lou was well-liked by Cold Sassians (I just made that term up), causing them to turn on outsider (and suspected Yankee, gasp!) Miss Love.
Most of the townspeople are portrayed as petty gossipers. With few other entertaining distractions, the residents of Cold Sassy were all up in each other’s business. Miss Love didn’t stand a chance. For example:
“[Will’s Mama], “Imagine, wearin’ a red dress in public when the fam’ly’s in mournin’.”
Folks had criticized Miss Love the week before for wearing black as if she was grieving for Granny. Now she was awful for wearing red.”
Much of Cold Sassy Tree is about Granny’s death and Grandpa’s and Miss Love’s May-December marriage (she’s quite a bit younger than him). But it’s also part coming of age story. Not only do we see the marriage through Will’s young eyes, but he also has adventures of his own, like kissing a girl in a cemetery, going on an ill-fated camping trip, and being run over by a train. He also tells funny tall tales and learns many important life lessons.
The story includes some heavy topics (including suicide and a rape in one character’s back story) but the overall tone is lighthearted and often very funny. While trying to figure out life, Will delivers several doses of humorous insights.
Cold Sassy Tree is also full of memorable characters. Grandpa is a larger than life, one-armed Civil War veteran who delights in antagonizing the judg-y Cold Sassians. Miss Love isn’t just a pretty face – she’s also a skilled milliner, a suffragette, a talented pianist, and a woman of deep faith. And Will is a delight, even as he’s getting into mischief and telling whoppers about his Aunt Loma.
Cold Sassy Tree gets a thumbs up from me. Its main drawback – at times it felt long and slow, but maybe that’s a Southern thing.
An interesting note about Cold Sassy Tree’s author, Olive Ann Burns: She had worked for an Atlanta newspaper for ten years when she was diagnosed with cancer. She decided to try writing fiction “for something more exciting to think about than fever and chemotherapy.” Her coping mechanism produced something quite successful. Cold Sassy Tree was a bestseller and became a movie, starring Neil Patrick Harris as Will Tweedy.
If you read a book published the year you graduated, please tell us all about it in the comments section.
I would also like to give a shout-out to a fellow book blogger who has been taking the challenge. See what Laura had to say about her book choice on The Corner of Laura.
**Reminder – June’s reading challenge is to read a biography or memoir of a famous father in honor of Father’s Day. Hmm…
Book Thoughts from Bed 
Thanks so much for the shout-out 🙂
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Wow, that was an excellent review! You nailed that one. Oh, and an equally excellent book. I loved this book, and you know that doesn’t happen very often. What a great tale about the South. Burns captures the Southern sentiment perfectly. I loved the small-town gossip – it was hilarious. There were many darned if you do, darned if you don’t type situations that were really entertaining. At first, reading the book took a while to get used to since the vernacular was a bit outside of my normal dialect. But what fun. Also, I couldn’t help but hear one of my favorite cartoon characters, Foghorn Leghorn, every time that Grandpa spoke. Since our son now lives in Georgia and we just returned from visiting him, I could hear the Southern accents loud and clear. While this book was really funny, I agree with you about the serious subject matter that Burns also addressed. It actually caught me by surprise since most of the book up to that point was just plain old-fashioned fun. But these topics certainly added depth to the story as well as a bit of reality. Alas, I guess like you, my only critique of the book is that it could have been a bit shorter and would likely have been just as entertaining. Great choice!
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I loved this book. I’ve taught in the past and my students really liked it, too.
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That must have been a fun book to teach! Thanks for commenting!
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