Barbara Holland writes about her experiences in moving out to "rural" Loudoun County and about the effect of the encroaching development on the country lifestyle.

I grew up and worked on a farm in western Loudoun. As one of the "locals", I enjoyed her account of the old way of life and it was fun to read about places and people I knew--it brought back a lot of memories. I also enjoyed (and shared) her obvious distaste for the suburbanites who have invaded and taken over Loudoun. That being said, I found her book overly simplistic and highly embellished.Despite her apparent love for the "locals", she understands them only on the most rudimentary level, which is why her analyses are often simplistic.

Readers should be aware that the book is half fiction and half fact. The "Mountain" where she lives is not nearly as inaccessible and remote as she portrays it. Her towns of "Pikesville" and "North Hill" are actually literary conglomerations of several real towns. In addition, Ms. Holland moved to Loudoun in the 1990's. By that point, the County had already been under transition from rural country to suburban life for almost 10 years. Many of the old-timers and old families had long since moved on or passed away. Which is perhaps why she felt the need to embellish the story. However, it was still fun to read about my High School and to recognize the few people and families that she names. All in all it was an enjoyable read. Potential readers should just be aware that it is a work of fiction, with its setting in reality.

It's hard for me, emeshed in the metropolitan area's urban sprawl, to believe that places like the one Barbara Holland writes about even exist, much less just sixty miles from downtown Washington, DC. She lives in a town with a country general store, where keeping a chainsaw is a necessity in order to remove felled trees from one's driveway, where backyards overlook mountains and orchards.

Yet Holland does more than celebrate her small town in this book, a sparkling, lively account of her adjustment to small-town life in northern Virginia after years of big city living. She is also sounding an alarm, because, increasingly, the orchards are giving way to housing developments and the country stores to Wal-Marts.

There is a sadness underneath Holland's light, subtle tone. Though she writes entertainingly about the hazards of life in a rural area (a mouse nest in her car's engine provides one typical example), she embraces its virtues with an unmistakable fondness. There is something to be said for a place where neighbors have known each other for generations, where community means lending a hand in a time of crisis, not arguing over properly mown grass and building anonymous gated fortresses.

Let's hope that Holland's terrific tribute is not also an elegy.

In Bingo Night, Barbara Holland tells the story of how she came to love village life in western Loudoun County, Virginia. She reports precisely on events that take place there---a county fair, a fund-raising rummage sale, an election, winter in the mountains. Her prose style is as clear as fresh water.

Perhaps because of her insider/outsider status as someone "come from away," Holland writes perceptively about the encroachment of the Washington, DC, suburbs on village life in western Loudoun County. Loudoun County is filling up with well-off suburbanites, for whom the small-town rural life is irrelevant. Some villagers have sold out and moved on, and more will follow. Yet the book is not grim. Rather, it is brimful with the pleasures of fine writing and a real feeling for the life she has chosen. You taste, touch, smell, see, and hear this life - quite specifically - as you read. And you feel worried, as she does, at the threats to its survival.

I live across the Potomac River in Maryland, closer to Washington (about 25 miles) than Barbara Holland is (about 60 miles), and I can vouch for the honesty of her comments.

This book, for a former Loudoun person, is like a nice warmed mashed potatoes and gravy. Interesting insights and clever quips highlight the bulk of the entire book. This is a great source for any kid who has to do research, especially for a class at Cool Spring Elementary. LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION AND LONG LIVE THE GREAT LOGAN KILIWAY! Joeboo Bojangles Esq.

I began reading this novel hoping to gain new insights into social life in the American South. Instead, I discovered a moderately interesting social analysis of the South that focuses a bit much on the psychological aspects of southern life without telling me why they were unique to the time period. For instance, Stevenson devotes an entire chapter to the challenges of marriage and the conflict between financial success and the marital bond. She doesn't always say what makes this problem unique to the South. I also noticed a creeping political correctness in her writing (e.g. "heterosexual" marriages among slaves) that she doesn't justify with historical evidence. This book served as a reminder of inequality, but maybe used too modern a standard to criticize a not-so-modern society.