The Journey of August King by John Ehle

This is one of the rare Appalachian novels that has been made into a Hollywood movie – in 1996 by Miramax. It is the second, chronologically, of seven historical novels by John Ehle (1925-2018) that together illuminate the history of Western North Carolina. The Land Breakers starts the series. The Time of Drums is the Civil War novel; followed by The Road, The Winter People, Lion on the Hearth, and finally Last One Home. He also published four other novels and six non-fiction books. John Ehle was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and served in the infantry during World War II. He then earned an undergraduate degree and a Masters from the University of North Carolina and joined their faculty from 1951-1963. He quit his job to join the campaign of Terry Sanford for North Carolina governor and then joined Governor Sanford’s staff. In that capacity he founded the North Carolina School for the Arts and the North Carolina Governor’s School, among the first such programs established that pro