Asheville’s Own Wayne Caldwell Shares His First Novel, Cataloochee
On UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 15, at 9:30 PM

Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post—Civil War saga of three generations of families—their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Wayne Caldwell’s Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.

In an all-new episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin, premiering Friday, August 15, at 9:30 PM, Caldwell brings to life the Cataloochee’s historic struggles and close kinships over a span of six decades.

Full of humor, darkness, beauty, and wisdom, Cataloochee is a classic novel of place and family.

Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when “where you was born was where God wanted you,” Cataloochee’s Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune.

Never one to pass on opportunity, Ezra Banks, an ambitious young man seeking some land of his own, arrives in Cataloochee in the 1880s. His first order of business is to marry a Carter girl, Hannah, the daughter of the valley’s largest landowner. From there, Ezra’s brood grows, as do those of the Carters and the Wrights.

With hard work and determination, the burgeoning community transforms wilderness into home, to be passed on through generations. But the idyll is not to last, nor to be inherited: The government takes steps to relocate folks to make room for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and tragedy will touch one of the clans in a single, unimaginable act.

Cataloochee author Wayne Caldwell was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Appalachian State University, and Duke University. He began writing fiction in the late 1990s. He has published four short stories and a poem, and won two short story prizes. Caldwell lives near Asheville with his wife, Mary. Cataloochee is his first novel.

Don’t miss DG Martin’s all-new interview with Wayne Caldwell on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 15, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airing Sunday, August 17, at 5 PM.

During the 26-week season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Frances Mayes (A Year in the World), Rob Christensen (The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics), Robert Morgan (Boone), Eleanora Tate (Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance), Eric Wilson (Against Happiness), Theda Perdue (The Cherokee Nation and The Trail of Tears), Bernie Harberts (Too Proud to Ride a Cow), Jean Anderson (A Love Affair with Southern Cooking), Joe Glatthaar (General Lee's Army), Tony Earley (The Blue Star), JD Rhoades (Breaking Cover), Therese Fowler (Souvenir), Cindy Ramsey (Boys of the Battleship North Carolina), Anna Rubino (Queen of the Oil Club), Nancy Peacock (A Broom of One's Own), Louise Hawes(Black Pearls), and Nortin Hadler (Worried Sick).

For additional information about series guests and airdates, plus links to the Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other original productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

—UNC-TV—