The same isn’t true of her supervisors, Eula Foster and Harriet Hardin, who treat Cussy and the only Black librarian, Queenie Johnson, as unintelligent, disease-ridden pariahs because they are “colored.”Īfter Cussy returns to her library route, her dead husband’s cousin, Pastor Vester Frazier, begins to stalk her. And when she meets her newest patron, Jackson Lovett, she quickly earns his respect and regard.

Some, especially Angeline, Winnie, and Miss Loretta, consider her a friend and don’t care about the color of her skin. Moffit doesn’t like to look at her blue face-overall, Cussy’s patrons like her. And although she faces some bigotry from her patrons-Mr. Moffit and his wife, Angeline Martha Hanna and “ Devil John” Smith Miss Loretta Adams and Oren Taft-and to the mountain school run by Winnie Parker. Cussy, now in possession of Charlie’s abused mule, Junia, returns to her work as a Pack Horse Librarian.Ĭussy brings books to far-flung homesteaders-including Mr. Charlie mercilessly beats Cussy on their wedding night, then fortunately dies of a heart attack. He finally gets a taker, an old man named Charlie Frazier. The only reason Cussy has any suitors at all is because Pa has offered 10 acres of land for her dowry. She’s also afraid of the kind of man who would want to marry one of the “Kentucky Blue People.” Cussy and several generations of her ancestors have a rare genetic condition that turns their skin blue, and although they are otherwise healthy and normal, they are treated with fear and bigotry. Cussy doesn’t want to get married she has a job with the WPA’s Pack Horse Library project, delivering books to people in remote communities and homesteads in the hinterlands around Troublesome Creek. Cussy’s mother died of influenza and Pa-a Kentucky coal miner-is sick himself with black lung. In January of 1936, 19-year-old Cussy Mary Carter’s father is trying very hard to find a suitable husband for his daughter.

The library woman of troublesome creek