A Long and Happy Life, by Reynolds Price (New York: Scribner, 2007; first published in 1962)
Set in the hills of North Carolina, Reynolds Price’s first novel follows the poignant, troubled, love story of Rosacoke Mustian and Wesley Beavers.
…all her life she heard about the Beavers but never saw one till that day – a Saturday – when she went out in Mr. Isaac’s woods to pick up pecans off the ground. It was too early for that though – the leaves were gone but the nuts hung on, waiting for a wind, and there was no wind this day – so she was heading home with mighty little in her bucket, going slow, just calling it a walk now, when she looked ahead, and in one tall tree that the path bent round was a boy, spreading his arms between the branches and bracing his feet like he was the eagle on money. It was a pecan tree and she walked straight up under it and said, ‘Boy, shake me down some nuts.’ Not saying a word he gripped the branches tighter and rocked the fork he stood in, and nuts fell on her like hail by the hundred till she yelled out to stop or else her skull would crack. – from A Long and Happy Life, by Reynolds Price