Christy, by Catherine Marshall, is about nineteen year old Christy Huddleston, who gives up her life of comfort in Ashville, Tennessee to serve as a teacher in the impoverished community of Cutter Gap, Tennessee in the early nineteen hundreds. In this book, Christy Huddleston learns to love the people of Cutter Gap unconditionally, and to serve others around her. Christy also struggles to sort through the romantic feelings she has toward the doctor and the minister.
After hearing a presentation by Dr. Ferrand, a non-denominational Christian missionary, Christy was challenged to move to Cutter Gap to teach at the mission. After packing her bags, Christy moves to Cutter Gap, Tennessee to find herself surrounded by the superstitious, poverty stricken, and illiterate people of the cove. Christy is determined to improve their way of life. While struggling to gain respect from the school bullies, and dealing with the unsanitary ways of the people, Christy finds herself looking at her new life in discontent. She is overwhelmed by the duties and responsibilities she encounters. Christy questions if she made the right decision by coming to Cutter Gap. Miss Alice, a Quaker woman who is there to help run the mission, is always filled with advice and encouragement and helps Christy realize that she did not come here seeking a better life for herself, she came to serve others so that they might have a better life and also have a chance to be eternally redeemed. She learns patience by waiting for opportunities to serve, and develops a sense of victory every time she knows she is useful to someone.
Besides gaining a friendship with Miss Alice, Christy also gains friendships with the stubborn minister, David Grantland, and the prideful, Scottish-Irish physician, Dr. Neil McNeil. Christy expands her insight and gains clues to the destitute mountain people through the minister and the doctor. As Christy learns more, and knows more about the two men, she begins feel affection for both of them, and Christy must sort through her feelings to see if she is in love with either of them.
Christy Huddleston's faith is severely tested when Fairlight Spencer, Christy's closest friend, dies of typhoid and pneumonia. Christy can't understand why God can let there be so much pain and suffering in the world. She questions God about how He, the creator of the universe, can let Fairlight die. Christy struggles with her belief in God, but when she seeks Him in the words of the Bible, those words speak straight to her heart. Christy is assured that God is real, and that He works in mysterious ways.
This book also shows how God can use something negative to bring others to Him. Birdseye Taylor, a cold-hearted man who lives in the cove, and several other men, become mixed up in illegal distilling of whiskey. While a typhoid epidemic spreads through Cutter Gap, Birdseye is accused of murdering a man who was also tangled in the bootlegging. Birdseye retreats into hiding. When he finds out that his son, Lundy, is ailing with typhoid, he returns to the cove to see him. Lundy Taylor, dies, but through the tragedy, the Lord uses this situation to change Birdseye's heart and to eventually bring Birdseye to Him.
I recommend this book because it shows, through the eyes of a young teacher, how God can work mysteriously to turn something negative into something positive. It also shows how someone can unconditionally love even the unlovable. I'm convinced that this book will change your outlook on life. I was challenged to be a more unselfish, humble person.
The story is a good one. It has been told many times, however: young, innocent girl goes to the frontier to be a schoolteacher, encounters many problems, finds love. I found it rather trite. Its religion is heavy-handed and seems to be the only message in the book; the ending left me with a sour taste in my mouth. The "miraculous" quality was very off-putting, and I had expected that outcoming for a hundred pages or more.
Quite frankly, Christy will not stand the test of time; works like the Great Gatsby, Lolita, 1984, and even some less-appreciated ones such as Farenheit 451 will outlast it. Simply put, it doesn't have the artistry of language, of symbol, and of purpose that most of those do. If you want to read a literary book that deals with disillusionment and the finding of tranquility within one's self, try Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
