The Far Family picks up after Dykeman’s The Tall Woman and tells the story of Lydia McQueen’s children and grandchildren.  The novel opens in the twentieth century when protagonist Ivy Thurston Cortland, Lydia’s granddaughter, is an old woman.   Ivy and her siblings Clay, Frone, Phoebe, and Kin have left their Nantahala home for other areas of the country, but crisis strikes when Clay returns to the valley town.  An African American man is murdered shortly after his arrival, and Clay is accused of the crime.  The novel’s chapters alternate between “yesterday” and “today” to tell the story of the Martha McQueen Thurston’s children as they reunite to help their brother Clay.  The “today” chapters focus on the family crisis, while the “yesterday” chapters relate the family’s beginning.  Martha and her husband Tom purchased the mountain land where Lydia and Mark McQueen raised their family in The Tall Woman, but Martha’s children have a different relationship with the land than she did when she was a girl.  The family ties are tested and prevail.

Check this title’s availablity in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.