Mountain Path does not fall into the sentimental tradition of most mountain fiction up to that time…. Mountain Path is the story of an outsider who comes into the mountains with little or no background for understanding the people and their ways….

[The plot] is interesting enough; but it is not really the crux of the novel. On the contrary, the plot exists primarily to provide continuity for the presentation of a gallery of mountain people and, indeed, of a whole way of life. (p. 45)

[It] is not plot that makes Mountain Path a successful novel—for, from that standpoint, the narrative is no more nor no less than those of the host of mountain novels that preceded and accompanied it. Indeed, if Path has weaknesses, they lie in the area of plot. Events are melodramatic and often contrived; characters are occasionally incorporated into the story with little...