Cold Sassy Tree

Cold Sassy Tree is a 1984 historical novel by Olive Ann Burns. Set in the U.S. state of Georgia in the fictional town of Cold Sassy (based on the real city of Harmony Grove, now Commerce) in 1906, it follows the life of a 14-year-old boy named Will Tweedy, and explores themes such as religion, death, and social taboos. An incomplete sequel to the novel, Leaving Cold Sassy, was published in 1992 after Burns' death.

Plot summary

On July 5, 1906, Enoch Rucker Blakeslee announces that he intends to marry Miss Love Simpson, a milliner at his store who is years younger than he. This news shocks his family, since his wife Mattie Lou died only three weeks earlier. Rucker’s daughters, Mary Willis and Loma, worry about what the gossips of Cold Sassy will think of their father’s impropriety.

Will Tweedy, Rucker’s 14-year-old grandson and the novel's narrator, supports his grandfather’s marriage. He thinks Miss Love is nice and pretty, although she comes from Baltimore and therefore is practically a Yankee. Will thinks Rucker needs someone to look after him now that Mattie Lou is gone. On the afternoon of Rucker and Miss Love's elopement, Will sneaks off to go fishing in the country, despite the fact that he is supposed to be in mourning for his grandmother. He walks across a high, narrow train trestle and nearly dies when a train speeds toward him. He survives by lying flat between the tracks so the train passes just overhead without touching him. Will becomes a sensation after his near-death experience, and the whole town comes to his house to ask him about the incident. Rucker shocks everyone by arriving with his new bride, Miss Love.

Cold Sassy Tree (opera)

Cold Sassy Tree is an opera composed by Carlisle Floyd, based on the 1984 novel by Olive Ann Burns.

Cold Sassy Tree was Floyd’s tenth opera. It had its world premiere on April 14, 2000, at the Houston Grand Opera, with a production staged by Australian filmmaker Bruce Beresford and conducted by Patrick Summers. The original cast included Dean Peterson, Patricia Racette, Diane Alexander, Beth Clayton, Margaret Lloyd and John McVeigh. The production was the Houston Grand Opera’s 25th new opera, and was created in a co-commission between the company and opera companies in Austin, Baltimore, North Carolina and San Diego.

Floyd came to the project by way of a sibling. "The book was given to me by my sister, because she thought that somebody from this part of the world, the southeast, would probably fully appreciate it,” he said in an interview following the Houston premiere. “But, everywhere I have traveled in this country, people have read Cold Sassy Tree and the standard reaction from everybody, male and female, is 'I loved it.' Obviously, its appeal goes far beyond regional boundaries. What appealed to me most about it in terms of its operatic possibilities were the very vivid, rich characters. And it is also rich in comic incidents.”