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The Ballad of Falling Rock
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it died of a broken heart.
Yet, more than anything else folks ponder in the town of Trinity, one question lingers: why did this angel-toned preacher’s son, just as his fame seemed ready to light the Appalachian nightsky forever, disappear completely?
In 1938, the decisions Saul makes will alter his family’s story for generations. He and his eerily talented descendants ignite religious fear throughout Red Pine County. They navigate chapels, decaying sanatoriums, high school hallways, and a lingering myth from their Cherokee heritage that follows them wherever they go.
In the end, however, it’s Saul’s precocious grandson, Eli, who must find answers to these heartbreaking questions, who must enter this world rich in music and voices, where people die to hear the unspoken, and salvation is only found in the not-yet sung.
Praise for The Ballad of Falling Rock
“The prose reaches heights and depths of exquisite beauty…”
—Tupelo Quarterly
“A novel about the fearsome power of love, and in many ways it is magical and heart-wrenching…”
—Historical Novel Society
“I’m worried that any review I make about this book will never do it justice. This was the most beautiful story ever written about the saddest song ever sung. I was taken on a journey across generations where love, family and music; however complicated, overpowered all else.
The character development and incredible imagery felt like I was living along with the Crabtree family. I experienced heartache, anger, hope, and joy while embarking on this journey with Saul, Lee and Eli. This is the first book that I have taken to my dreams with me and the characters have solidified a place in my heart. I will compare my experience in reading this to that of those within the novel hearing the generational tales as I will carry this with me for a long time. Music has held a high place amongst my family and to feel the passion and devastation in the risk of music being lost was such a powerful feeling.
Jordan Dotson has a true gift, much like the main characters in this novel. It reads like poetry and I cannot wait for this book to release because I will be buying numerous copies. This is the first novel where I have highlighted SEVERAL quotes because they were absolutely beautiful.
I am absolutely blown away.”
“A stunning book that follows at least four generations of a family in the Appalachian region…”
—Compulsive Reader
“Jordan Dotson’s The Ballad of Falling Rock is a sweeping tale about the legacy of our country’s own sins and how that manifests through generations of an Appalachian family whose musical genius has the power to heal and destroy. Even in the novel’s darkest moments, Dotson’s sentences crackle on every page and are infused with a joy and love for the region and its people. This heartbreaking and tender debut is not to be missed.”
— Sybil Baker, author of Apparitions
“Jordan Dotson’s debut novel The Ballad of Falling Rock is a fabulous, fabulist, wildly and wonderfully spun tale that invites us to see, truly see “the world through a pool of tears,” because everything’s “just a story in the end.” The world in question is America, specifically Appalachia, with its legends, mythologies, prayers and music. And it’s steeped in the music that is America – church, gospel, country, blues, pop, rock and roll, jazz – like the “song without an end,” a love elegy and curse gliding through the generations. This multi-generational saga begins before WWII with the elusive Saul Crabtree right down to his grandson Eli, who is the son of a preacher man. The language sings, just as Saul and Eli do in between spinning their stories of love and longing. A remarkable feature of this gorgeously rendered novel is the way it sends up violence borne of ignorance and intolerance – in our schools, churches, town and country communities – violence that plunges us into false memories, alternative facts, and if we aren’t careful, a forgetting of history. Except that The Ballad of Falling Rock will not let us forget, because its rich tapestry of Melungeons, Hillbillies, Blacks, Whites and every shade in between is the undeniable American dreamscape, the America that keeps on gritting its teeth and smiling despite all the prejudice that continues to make outcasts of dreamers and artists, that denies true love its place, that wounds us with its self-righteousness. In the end, though, this is a story of hope, with the promise of a brighter future as long as we dare to continue to dream. A truly original debut, we look forward to much more from this powerful voice of a very talented writer.”
— Xu Xi, author of That Man In Our Lives
“This song of a novel is the perfect harmony of poetic prose and storytelling, as Saul Crabtree’s legacy unfolds across generations. With an ear for the language of Appalachia, and an eye for sensory and historical details, Dotson’s ‘Ballad’ echoes in the mind and on the heart long after the last song is sung.”
—Amy Clark Spain, author and co-editor of Talking Appalachian