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O Little Town | 
 enlarge | Author: Don Reid
Publisher: David C. Cook
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy New: $11.55
You Save: $5.44 (32%)
New (31) Used (9) from $10.08
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 170336
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 290
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1434799301
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781434799302
ASIN: 1434799301
Publication Date: October 2008
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Product Description
Christmas 1958: Elvis is on the radio, Ike is in the White House, the Lord is in His holy temple . . . but there is no peace in Mt. Jefferson. In a small town where everybody seems to know everybody, there are still a few secrets. Three families find they are connected in ways they never suspected: an angry teen, a dying man, a lonely wife, a daughter in trouble . . . just ordinary people, muddling their way through ordinary challenges. Marriage. Illness. Bad decisions. Friendship. Faith. Forgiveness. Spanning three generations, O Little Town is a reminder that people still make mistakes, forgiveness can still be granted, and people still rise to the occasion and do the right thing. This tender tale of love and redemption will touch readers' hearts.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Just What We Need, Right When We Need It December 27, 2008
As much as I loved listening to the Statler Brothers for much of my life, I'm awfully glad now that they've retired. Why? These fine men deserve a good retirement, of course, but I'm also glad that Don Reid now has time to channel his creativity in another direction - writing books. I very much enjoyed two of his earlier non-fiction works, and just finished reading his first novel, "O Little Town." I loved it! The story is very well written and keeps the reader wondering how each family's issues are going to be resolved. My favorite part of this book is the thread that's woven throughout the entire story - love intertwined with faith. In today's world, God and His love are so often ignored as people go about their quest of amassing status and wealth; so I love to see, hear, or read about how the Lord works in people's lives. This book did that beautifully. "O Little Town" was balm to my soul. Thank you, Don!
Couldn't Put It Down! December 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have read all of Don Reid's books, but this one is the best so far. I live in Staunton, the hometown of the Statler Brothers, and know Don Reid and his wife, Debbie.
I received my book on Friday afternoon, the day before my family Christmas dinner. I am from a huge family and the cook that brings all the family favorites. They were seriously short-changed this year, because I just couldn't stop reading. If I had not finished in time, I would have been late for the dinner--it was that good.
In my own walk with God, I have been struggling with the forgiveness issue. The last chapters, in which all the main characters attend a Christmas Eve candlelight service where the Pastor delivers a sermon about forgiveness, spoke to my heart. I know the model for that pastor was my own pastor, and as I attend my own church's Christmas Eve candlelight service tonight, I will be remembering this fictional service. Don Reid will be in the audience, as always.
Knowing the people and the town caused me to try to figure out where the real stores and theater were located. I will definitely be going to Thornrose Cemetery to find the grave of Eva Clark, and see if the mysterious roses are left this year.
Thank you, Don, for a beautiful Christmas story.
 Forgiveness and mercy even as flawed characters seek change December 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you like the music of The Statler Brothers or the fiction of Debbie Macomber, you'll be excited that with O LITTLE TOWN, Statler Brother Don Reid has made his first foray into fiction. The Grammy Award-winning songwriter sets his seasonal tale in the fictional town of Mt. Jefferson (modeled after his hometown of Staunton, Virginia).
It's just before Christmas in 1958; Elvis is on the radio, Eisenhower is in the White House and the pastor's 15-year-old daughter is shoplifting at Macalbee's Five and Dime. Other Mt. Jefferson families have their own set of troubles. The arresting officer Buddy Briggs has just found out that his teenage daughter is pregnant --- and the news is going to come as a bombshell to Dr. Campbell Sterrett, whose son is the father. Dr. Sterrett, or "Camp" as he's known, is also dealing with his own aging father-in-law, Walter, who wants to leave Lenity General Hospital in the midst of a bout with the flu to be with family for Christmas. In other scenes, the preacher's wife Dove is tired of being married to a minister and, by vocation, being married to his congregation and their needs, and keeps the embers glowing with her love interest from the past.
There's a lot to keep track of here between the characters and their doings, and the time change between the late 1950s and Walter's reminiscences about Christmas of 1904. Reid takes his inspiration for one of the novel's 1904 subplots from a true story. In the author interview from the afterword, he tells readers that a traveling circus troupe performer, Eva Clark, was murdered in his hometown around the turn of the century. Each year to the present day, an unknown person leaves flowers on her grave. In the book, Eva becomes Adrienne Knoles, an actress performing a holiday play with her husband, Nicholas. Walter tells her story through the eyes of himself as a 16-year-old stage boy at the Crown theater.
Reid incorporates many nice details of the time period, including the soap "As the World Turns" (the most watched daytime drama of 1958) and "White Christmas" sung by The Drifters. A younger generation of readers may miss some of the World War II references that are not explained ("Anzio was a card game compared to this"). The avalanche of expected problems may feel like too many and too fictionally familiar to readers (the small town with lots of secrets simmering just under the surface, the unwed pregnant daughter, the pessimistic medical diagnosis, the affair, the young rebellious minister's daughter), but Reid keeps everything hanging together and never lets anything become more gloomy than a gentle angst. He tends to tell rather than show ("Dove and Amanda needed each other this afternoon. They were confidants who knew what they said would not go beyond the edges of the small table they were leaning into as they exchanged problems and solutions.").
But the very familiarity of the small town troubles may endear the characters to readers: the marital difficulties, frustrations of raising children and coping with an aging parent. Reid incorporates some good themes of forgiveness and mercy as his flawed characters seek change.
All problems are neatly resolved in the end (with an epilogue tidying up any other loose threads), which is in keeping with the book's message of holiday inspiration and cheer. Statler Brothers fans and those who like a gentle read will enjoy Reid's foray into fiction.
--- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby. Contact Cindy at phrelanzer@aol.com.
Wonderful Words of Life October 19, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I remember and old song that included the lyrics "beautiful words...marvelous words...wonderful words of life". Don Reid's "O Little Town" is an easy reminder of what that meant to me.
The story is constructed from the gravy of everyday existence. Any family can search it's files of triumph or sorrow and come up with a tale to equal this. But that is not nearly the point. Don Reid has woven a masterpiece of emotional connection to any familiy who ever lived and loved and fought and forgave.
O Little Town is beautifully written and worth your time. I don't often continue to live in a book once it is finished as I did this particular one. And it's two surprises near the ending have kept me smiling for several days!
forgiveness is divine and human October 12, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
In 1958 in Mt Jefferson, Macalbee's Five & Dime manager Milton Sandridge is informed that fifteen year old Millie Franklin has been caught shoplifting. Milton would prefer to ignore the crime as the culprit is the daughter of Reverend Paul Franklin, pastor of the Methodist Church, but there are too many witnesses. He calls Police Lieutenant Buddy Briggs who comes over to talk with Millie before taking her home. Millie is upset and angry, but refuses to say anything further. Her father and her mother Dove ask her why.
Widower Walter Selmon, Milton's father-in-law, is rushed to the hospital where his other son-in-law Camp Sterrett is a doctor. The medical tests conclude he is dying, upsetting his two adult daughters, Milton's wife Colleen and Camp's spouse Doris. Doris' oldest of two sons, seventeen years old Louis informs his parents he impregnated sixteen year old Shirley Ann Briggs; who informs her dad the sheriff and her mom Amanda.
The key to this engaging historical fiction is the fully developed small-town cast who each has flaws, makes mistakes, and has issues. The subplot involving a teenage Walter and an actress in 1904 is well written but can distract from the prime 1958 drama. Still O LITTLE TOWN is a delightful inspirational tale with the theme of forgiveness running through both tracks accentuated years later with the tradition of the roses emphasizing all is forgiven.
Harriet Klausner
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