The Bridge to Cutter Gap: Christy, #1
On a vacation in which we flew into Asheville, NC and then drove to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, I thought of Christy and meant to watch the series again. I couldn’t find it in streamable format anywhere, but as I searched for it, I found a book series instead! I had only known about the novel, “Christy.” I now wonder if these novellas were the basis for the screenplay of the series. It’s perfect to read them “on location,” as it were: Christy, a 1900s teacher from Asheville, is moved for spiritual reasons to travel to middle-of-nowhere Tennessee, called Cutter Gap. There, the very rustic people have next to nothing, and they’re both backwoods and backwards in every way. Yet with kindness and compassion, Christy and fellow missionaries Miss Alice and David (the preacher), begin to understand their ways and join their community.
“The Bridge to Cutter Gap” is very episodic, and yet this one is the story of how Christy came to Cutter Gap, and met all the main characters, so it must be a reprise of what’s in the novel. I’ll have to reread that one next. The episodes work well for this kind of story though– it’s about the “feel” more than the plot.
My rating: ****
Silent Superstitions: Christy, #2
The conflict in this one is that a great granny in Cutter Gap, threatened by the new teacher, spreads rumors after a series of mishaps that she is cursed. She convinces the children to stay away from school or else to wear a smelly concoction of herbs around their necks to ward off Christy’s “curse.” Christy almost leaves Cutter Gap over it, convinced that she will never manage to break through to the people… but a heartwarming simple turn of events changes her mind.
My rating: ****
The Silent Intruder, Christy #3
The conflict in this one is a combination: Christy writes home for donations, but fails to check with Miss Alice and David first, and finds that she’s stepped on toes. This feeds into the second but more major conflict: someone is writing threatening messages and scaring Christy, trying to convince her to leave. She has one bully in her class whom she suspects, but she can’t prove it’s him. Meanwhile, there’s a love triangle amongst three of her students, which seems to mirror Christy’s own budding love triangle between David, the preacher, and Dr MacNeill.
My rating: ****
Language for all three: none
Sexual content: none
Violence: none
Political content: none
