The Saints of Swallow Hill

Throughout the novel, Rae Lynn struggles to find family and friendships amid loneliness and grief, but she finds healing once she creates the familial bonds she always desired. Having grown up an orphan, Rae Lynn marries the significantly older Warren: “maybe it was her growing sense of not belonging and the idea of having her own little family was something she’d never thought possible, but now, with Warren, it was” (18). She values her husband and their home, putting much of her joy into them, though she lacks solid bonds with the others in her life, such as Warren’s friend Butch—who tries to extort her after Warren’s death—and Warren’s son, Eugene, whom she suspects doesn’t like her. When she is forced to kill Warren, she is filled with grief and guilt. She fears punishment, but also misses her husband, her only real companion.

Upon arriving at Swallow Hill, Rae Lynn immediately befriends Del, who also dislikes Crow and wants to help and guide her in the camp, and Cornelia, whose respect she earns after defending her against Otis. After Del saves her from the wooden box and Cornelia nurses her back to health, she takes joy in making them food and helping them in any way she can. She bonds with Cornelia and feels “an instant kinship” with her and considers her “already a friend” (214) soon after meeting; their relationship deepens as they share their secrets and find mutual acceptance of one another’s true selves. When Rae Lynn leaves the camp, Cornelia goes with her, and Del meets them soon after their departure. At the farmhouse of Del’s childhood, Rae Lynn begins to feel happy and “the hard knot of fear centered within her turned soft, yielding to the ease of life at the farmhouse” (315). When she stops visiting the Cobb house, she settles at the farmhouse, happy with her life there. She accepts Del’s proposal of marriage, seeing a future with him after everything he had done for her.

She feels completely contented after she and Del eventually start the family she always wanted. She says she “couldn’t get enough of looking at their children, watching them when they didn’t know it” (356). After Cornelia develops a tumor in her throat and dies, Rae Lynn is devastated “for a good while,” but is able to heal with Del and their children by her side (361). Rae Lynn overcomes the grief and trauma she faces in the novel by building and fostering the familial bonds she makes with Del, Cornelia, Sudie May and her family, and, eventually, her and Del’s children.

For most of the novel, Del is determined to build a legacy both for the longleaf pines in North Carolina and for his family. The opportunity in turpentining inspires him to return to his family’s business of turpentine farming and his love for the longleaf pines. He states that “maybe he’d plant more” trees in his childhood home and that “they’d outlive him and his sons, if he ever had any” (63). He starts to dream about “teaching his own boys about how land and trees like the longleaf were richer than any money they might earn. How, if they weren’t careful, it could all disappear” (63). This later becomes a lifelong mission for Del. He dreams of starting a turpentine farm, marrying the right woman, and having children whom he can teach about the pines.

At the old farmhouse, he starts a turpentine operation and hires Rae Lynn as a woods rider. After they marry and have children, he begins teaching his sons everything about the trees and turpentining, explaining that, “For him, it was important because in that understanding, they would appreciate it; that appreciation would make his vision, his love for the pines everlasting” (350). Rae Lynn also understands the importance of their and the trees’ legacies. After she settles at the farmhouse for good, Del talks about “the vision he had of the land, of a family, and of her by his side” and asks her, “Can you see it?” (349). She replies, “Yes, I can” (349), showing that she loves him and that she also wants to build a legacy for her family and the trees. She watches her children and thinks about “how her and Del’s blood ran in their veins” (356), adding:

They were an indelible symbol of what they’d accomplished; like the catfaces on the trunks of the longleaf pines, they were the imprint of their love, their existence proof of what they’d been, who they were, even long after they’d left this Earth (356).

Del’s, and Rae Lynn’s, shared recognition of legacy’s importance, not only for family but also for nature, allows them to put their energy into preserving their families and the trees for decades and centuries to come.