When I was in the second or third grade, I read my first novel: "Toby Tyler: Ten Weeks in the Circus," the first step in a life long journey of reading books. The wonder and awe I felt as a kid, entering into Toby Tyler's world, was exhilarating. I realized that there was a world out there, very different from my small New Jersey town, and there were people who looked and acted differently than my friends and family, but who had similar feelings, needs and conflicts.

It always intrigues me that so many folks only want to read books that mirror their own lives. Not that I haven't experienced a few novels that vividly capture my own life experience, most notably the early novels of Philip Roth.

But take me to unknown places peopled with individuals I have never met and I am thrilled.

These thoughts were kicking around my cranium while introduced to Julie Harmon, the late 19th Century young woman situated in Robert Morgan's new novel, GAP CREEK, published by Algonquin Books.

Unlettered, steeped in a day by day struggle against hunger and weather impositions, her saga became real and intense for me. Author Morgan captures a slice of past America that I would never have known. He allowed me to become acquainted with the humanity of this bold, young woman, her husband, other relatives and distant neighbors.

Young Julie Harmon and her husband settle in an isolated cabin near a creek in South Carolina, across the border from their North Carolina origins. The newlyweds confront behavior of all sorts, most painfully the loss of their first born. But you feel their growing sense of self and dignity. The price for wisdom comes high for these decent folks.

Mr. Morgan allowed this 20th Century urbanite to have more than a glimpse of this woman and her world, a woman whose tenacity reveals the best of America's pioneer spirit and checkered growth.

This reader can ask for little more than to be rewarded as Mr. Morgan has surprisingly made possible in GAP CREEK.