The Devil's Dream (47 page)

As I worked on this book, I was especially inspired by the music of Jean Ritchie; the novels
The Heart of the Country
by Bland Simpson and
Ruby Red
by William Price Fox; the music of the Red Clay Ramblers of Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and ballad singer Sheila Barnhill's tales about growing up in Sodom, North Carolina.

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from the following:

And thanks her friends:

Lee Smith
is the author of fifteen works of fiction including
Oral History, Fair and Tender Ladies,
and her recent
Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger
. She has received many awards including the North Carolina Award for Literature and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; her novel
The Last Girls
was a
New York Times
bestseller as well as winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in North Carolina.