On Agate Hill, by Lee Smith

** spoiler alert ** I adored the first 2/3 of this book! It was like an Appalachian Jane Eyre, told in Epistolary format, almost literally. We are introduced to Molly Petree, a smart, vivacious, ahead of her time orphan, who is currently living with her kindly uncle and aunt. When her aunt dies, her father remarries a manipulative woman, then her uncle later passes away, leaving Molly at the mercy of her stepmother, Selena. A mysterious benefactor comes to whisk Molly away to school, where the cruel headmistress treats her unfairly, and it is implied her best friend dies. She later goes away to become a schoolmistress when she has no other plans after graduation (sound familiar, anyone?). Despite these similarities, it never feels like a word for word rewrite of Jane Eyre, like some other novels I have read. It is definitely much darker, involving child molestation, violence, and detailed descriptions of death. It is when the similarities to Jane Eyre stopped that this book started going downhill for me, and not because I didn't like the story-line, but because it seemed rushed. Molly has many suitors vying for her affections, and she finally gets engaged to a wealthy one, despite the fact she doesn't love him. However, whenever she meets Jacky Jarvis, a mountaineering musician, she realizes love is greater than money and breaks her engagement off, favoring romance and passion to wealth. This is where, in my opinion, the book could have gotten really good. I longed for more about Molly and Jacky's life together, the ups and the downs-we hear of their passionate love, and the fact that they loved to dance on the porch together, but also the realization that Jacky was unfaithful and fathered illegitimate children with another woman in town because Molly kept losing her own babies. We don't see any of this from Molly's letters or diaries, however. We go from a letter explaining Molly's newfound romance to a document describing the court hearing of Molly for the murder of Jacky. Yes, that's right. It was like a splash of cold water! Molly is happy and in love, then all of a sudden, Molly's cousin-in-law is defending her against the murder of her husband and explaining all the depressing things that happened in their lives for the jury. It just seemed to go too fast for me! The mystery of who killed Jacky and why was also never revealed, which was extremely frustrating. Jacky's cousin, Black Jack, was another fascinating character I wanted much more from. It was obvious he was in love with Molly, but nothing ever developed between them. I would have liked to have seen her stay with him, even just as friends, after Jacky's death, but that didn't occur. We then jump forward 20 years and see Molly as an old lady, which was incredibly depressing to me. She continued to do things her own way, but I missed the vivacious young woman I had grown to love! The letters from Tuscany seemed childish and unnecessary, and I would have preferred to cut those out and have more of Molly and Jacky. All in all, this was a really great book, with lots of characters that will stick with me for a long time. Its potential, however, was never fully reached.