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Author	John Ehle
Publisher	Harper and Row
Publication date	1967
Pages	401
ISBN	1572330163

The Road is a 1967 historical novel by John Ehle.  It is the third book published in Ehle’s 7-volume Appalachian cycle, also known as the Mountain Novels.  Chronologically, it is the fourth book in the series.

Plot

The Road is set in 1876 and is a fictionalized account of the construction of the Western North Carolina Railroad from Old Fort, NC, westward into the Appalachian Mountains.  In The Road, the line’s destination is the fictional valley setting of the Mountain Novels.  Swannanoa Gap, the highest point of the line, shares its name with a town along the historic WNCRR.  Also, Swannanoa Tunnel, a significant setting in the novel, was part of the WNCRR route.  Ehle’s description of the use of primarily Black convict labor in the line’s construction is historically accurate.

Characters

• Weatherby Wright – an experienced railroad builder, and the overall manager of construction.  He is the grandson of Mooney Wright, a main character in the first of the Mountain Novels, The Land Breakers.  Weatherby is married to Mildred, and they have a young son, Troy.
• Hal Cumberland – an accountant and instructor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He joins Wright’s team to gain practical work experience and becomes his second-in-command.
• HenryAnna Plover – a young, unmarried woman who farms near the Swannanoa Gap.  She is descended from the pioneering Plover family of The Land Breakers.  She is courted by Cumberland although she is drawn to both him and Wright.
• Sow Mountain – the 5000-foot mountain that stands in the path of the railroad thwarts Wright and the entire enterprise with landslides, wild animals, cave-ins, and ferocious weather.  Wright comes to regard the mountain as an antagonist and often addresses it directly as ‘Old Woman’.

Reprintings

The Road was reissued in paperback format in 1998 by The University of Tennessee Press.