I first heard Maude on a lengthy car trip from southern Mississippi to east Texas. At first I wasn’t too sure about the audiobook’s narrator, Shana Gagnon, but as time went on I grew accustomed to her accent, which sounded more Northeast than the expected Southern accent.

Maude is the story of a woman born in 1892 in rural Tennessee. She lives through many of the historic events of the twentieth century–the pandemic flu, the Great Depression and both world wars. While the story touches on all of these events, it’s really about her personal and family life and how she lives, loves, and survives through poverty, motherhood, and two marriages.

The book is one of my all-time favorites. I love how the story moves through time and lets us witness one family moving from the horse and buggy days to the modern era of running water and automobiles. I love the characters, too, and how Donna Mabry uses their dialogue and actions to characterize them. For instance, the mother-in-law “welcomes” her daughter-in-law on her first night in a new home by leaving her out on the doorstep, and the sheriff of a sleepy town takes frequent naps at his desk during the day.

Mabry tells the story in first-person from Maude’s perspective. The real-life Maude is Mabry’s paternal grandmother. As Mabry explains in her intro to the novel, her grandma Maude used to share a bedroom with her some evenings, and during those times Maude would share stories from her life. At the encouragement of her daughter, Mabry decided to write down the stories, and they became this novel, which I would call both uplifting and sad.

This weekend, I started re-listening to the novel on a short car trip to Knoxville, and it will be my go-to listen today while I’m on the treadmill. Gotta love these audiobooks!