Gatlinburg and the Great Smokies

Before Ernie Pyle became famous for bearing witness to the horrors of war, he wrote about simpler things: a small mountain town, its stubborn and lovable inhabitants, the particular quality of light falling on ancient peaks. This little book collects eleven columns from the fall of 1940, when Pyle and his wife Jerry drove into Gatlinburg and found something that undid him. He writes about the mountain people with deep affection and without an ounce of condescension, about a trip up Mount LeConte that becomes a small odyssey, about the way the Smokies make you feel both small and strangely at home. Pyle's gift was finding the human story in everything, and here, far from battlefields, he found peace. The writing is plain-spoken and warm, touched with that wry, gentle humor that made him one of America's best-loved journalists. It's a snapshot of a place and a time that no longer exists, preserved in prose that feels like sitting on a porch as the sun goes down.