New Appalachian Books
Write-ups
Wendell Berry. Hannah Coulter. Washington,
D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard,
2004. 190 pages with a map and a family tree. Hardback
with dust jacket. $25.00.
In 1960, Wendell Berry published his first book, Nathan
Coulter, a novel about
a Kentucky man who worked a small hill farm during the second half of the Twentieth
Century. That novel was the beginning of what was to become one of the very
most distinguished writing careers ever to take place in the Southern hill
country. Now, after six more novels, three story collections, fourteen poetry
collections and sixteen works of non-fiction prose, Wendell Berry has returned
to Nathan Coulter’s life to tell the story of his wife as she recalls
it late in her life. For the first time, Wendell Berry uses a woman’s
name for his title. Berry’s combination of human insight, meaningful
message and vivid prose is as refreshing as it is rare in American literary
life, and this particular novel will be relished by Berry’s large fan
base.
Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy.
What a beautiful tribute to a way of life which has all but disappeared. The
pictures and commentary here document a 1973 harvest in Henry County, Kentucky,
performed by neighbors and friends who were “swapping work.” Berry,
who was a participant, concludes his essay with this comment on a local exhibition
of Hall’s photos: “It was a homecoming, a fulfillment of a sort.
. . . Old tobacco men stood looking at [the pictures] and wept. It was as though,
across a long interval of time, a window had been opened through which we saw
ourselves as we once were. And we were grateful for this witness to the light
we had.”
Ace Boggess, ed. Wild Sweet
Notes II: More Great Poetry from West Virginia. Huntington,
WV: Publishers Place, 2005.
233 pages with contributor’s notes and an index of
poets and poems. Paperback. $17.00.
This collection of West Virginia poetry contrasts sharply with the previous
volume: Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia
Poetry, 1950-1999 (2000).
The fact that the editor is a young man accentuates the youthful slant as does
the fact that he purposely excluded everyone who appeared in the last book.
In his “Introduction” Boggess says this anthology is made up of
newcomers, up-and-comers, and how-comers. The first category consists of people
who have recently moved into the state; the second of longer-term residents
who were too new to poetry to have been widely published earlier, and the how-comers
are those who were inexplicably left out of the last collection. The editor
is a widely published poet and a novelist as well as an associate editor of
The Adirondack Review. He resides in Huntington, West Virginia.
Robert Bridges, Kristina Olson,
and Janet Snyder, eds. Blanche Lazzell: The Life
and Work of an American Modernist.
Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2004. 338
pages with an index featuring many color reproductions
of the artist’s work. Oversized hardback with dust
jacket. $75.00.
The subject of this magnificent coffee-table book is Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956).
It traces her career from Morgantown, West Virginia, to New York, Paris, and
Provincetown, Massachusetts. Two hundred full-color illustrations and more
than fifty plates make her life and work come alive to the reader. The co-editors
all are connected to West Virginia University.
Tina Rae Collins. When Angels
Cry. Frederick, MD: Publish
America, 2004. 258 pages. Paperback. $18.95.
This novel tells the story of a woman whose husband of fourteen years abandons
her, their four children, and their trailer home in an Eastern Kentucky holler.
This inspiring story tells of Emily’s courage in dealing with these challenges
as well as others including her own health problems and the condemnation of
her family and her church. The author works for the Brushy Fork Institute of
the Berea College Appalachian Center. She grew up in Eastern Kentucky and is
a graduate of Pikeville College where she studied creative writing under the
late Leonard Roberts.
David Dick. Jesse Stuart:
The Heritage.
North Middletown, KY: Plum Lick Publishing, Inc., 2005.
292 pages with an
afterword by Thomas D. Clark and a bibliography of Stuart’s
books and photos. Hardback with dust jacket. $24.95.
Seldom have biographer and subject been more closely in tune. Like Stuart,
Dick is a prolific Kentucky author with a real flare for and intense enjoyment
of the literary arts as well as a deep understanding of the folklife of rural
Northeastern Kentucky. Stuart was the most popular of Kentucky’s Twentieth
Century writers. He led a fascinating life both as a young rebel and as a mature
civic leader. Dick’s deep familiarity with Stuart’s written words
is augmented by access to previously confidential correspondence and crucial
interview material never before available. This important new popular biography
will hopefully revive interest in Stuart for a whole new generation of readers. “David
Dick brings us the legendary Jesse Stuart, from birth to grave and beyond,
full-to-the-bursting with a lust for life, love, literature, work and the land
where he was born, lived and died. . . . More than just the facts, Dick’s
accounting draws heavily upon the spirit, the essence and the full-blooded
songs of the mountain plowman who will always be my literary hero.” – Garry
Barker.
Robert Dilger, Eleanor Blakely, Melissa Latimer, Barry Locke, F. Carson Mencken,
L. Christopher Plein, Lucinda Potter, and David Williams. Welfare Reform
in West Virginia. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University
Press, 2004. 326 pages with an index. Paperback. $30.00.
Eight scholars from West Virginia University offer articles here which together
not only illuminate how Welfare Reform has worked in the state but also make
recommendations for further changes.
B.L. Dotson-Lewis. Appalachia:
Spirit of Triumph a Cultural Odyssey of Appalachia.
West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2004. 261 pages
with photos. Paperback. $18.95.
The beautiful cover of this oversized coffee-table paperback is a portrait
of a mountain man by the late Connie Adams West. Inside are some of Earl Dotter’s
best regional photos. The book is a composite of reprint material—from
such outstanding sources as Jim Branscomb and Harry Caudill—and the author’s
own interviews with a variety of West Virginians. The result is an often-fascinating,
but not very well-organized, vision of what the region means to one deeply
committed individual.
Mari-Lynn Evans, Robert Santelli,
and Holly George-Warren, eds. The
Appalachians: America’s First and Last Frontier.
New York, NY: Random House Inc., 2004. 256 pages with an
index, an “Afterword” by Tom Robertson, and
color and black-and-white photos. Hardback with dust jacket.
$29.95.
This book is the companion volume to next spring’s long-awaited PBS special
on Appalachia. Utilizing a mixture of leading experts, like Gordon McKinney,
Judy Prozzillo Byers, Ted Olson, Howard Dorgan, Ronald Lewis, and Charles Lewis,
and more visible commentators, like Senator Robert C. Byrd, Johnny Cash, and
novelist Lee Smith, this amply illustrated book gives the reader a well-organized
and enjoyable introduction to the region. What a shame, since it is part of
a fundamentally visual mission, that its greatest flaw lies in the presentation
of some stereotypical images—by Shelby Lee Adams—which seem at
odds with the many beautiful and compelling illustrations.
Diane Gilliam Fisher. Kettle
Bottom. Florence, MA: Perugia
Press, 2004. 88 pages. Paperback. $15.00.
This little book offers an exploration of the 1920s mine wars in West Virginia
presented in vivid, expressive poetry. The author, who holds a Ph.D. from Ohio
State and an MFA from Warren Wilson College, grew up in Columbus, Ohio, the
offspring of parents from Mingo County, West Virginia, and Johnson County,
Kentucky. These are powerful, evocative poems, exhibiting an unusual grace
and depth. One of them, “Violet’s Wash,” first appeared in
the Winter 2003 Appalachian Heritage.
George Garrett. Double Vision.
Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2004.
176 pages. Hardback with dust jacket.
$24.95.
George Garrett is the Poet Laureate of Virginia and the author of thirty-four
books. He is a consummate academic/literary figure and role model. Now, at
the age of seventy, he is plagued with double vision, an affliction from which
he takes the title of this novel. It is fiction inspired by his personal relationship
with another eminent man of letters, Peter Taylor, who also lives in Charlottesville. “Perhaps
the most radical of all Garrett’s experiments, [this novel] is fascinating,
engaging, entertaining, funny and sorrowful, by turns wise, eloquent, graceful
and bawdy, too.” – Richard Bausch. “Double
Vision is masterful,
the work of a writer at the height of his powers, a gem wrought by genius.” – Kelly
Cherry. “George Garrett [here] grapples with the most intimate and profound
questions of life, art and mortality.” – David R. Slavitt.
Carolynn Fortney Hamilton. West
Virginia’s Lower
Tygart Valley River: People and Places.
Terra Alta, WV: Headline Books, Inc., 2004. 303 pages with
an index, a
bibliography and many photos. Oversized paperback. $29.95.
This is an enjoyable collection of over four hundred photos and commentary
on the Lower Tygart Valley River of West Virginia. What a nice addition to
Marion County, West Virginia, history. The author is a lifelong resident of
Colfax, West Virginia.
Marc Harshman. Local Journeys: A Collection of
Poems.
Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2004. 27 pages. Paperback. Limited collector’s
edition. $14.00.
This collection is a delight as an aesthetic creation in book-making as well
as for its content. Since two of the poems collected here are in this issue
of Appalachian Heritage, readers can simply turn a few pages to learn how evocative
Harshman’s voice is and to learn a little of his background. “If
words could save a world, Marc Harshman’s Local
Journeys would save the
woods and small farms of West Virginia. Harshman’s vision is so attuned
to this landscape that, as the speaker says in ‘Mushrooms,’ he
can ‘hardly step / without finding.’” – George Ella
Lyon. “These rich, beautiful poems are so close to the natural world
that you can almost feel the wet stones and moss on your hands and hear bird
song and mountain streams in the intricate music of the lines.” – Maggie
Anderson.
Dean Hill. Spirit of Appalachian
Kentucky: A Photographic Journey.
West Liberty, KY: Mortgage the Farm Publishing, 2004. 112
pages with an index of photographs and many color
photos. Oversized hardback in dust jacket. $39.95.
The photographer lives on the Morgan County end of Paintsville Lake in Eastern
Kentucky, a place he returned to after trekking in the Himalaya Mountains and
literally exploring and photographing the world. Presented here, with a minimum
of poetic words by the photographer, are some of the very most dramatic and
beautiful color photographs ever to capture the beauty of Eastern Kentucky.
Bruce Hopkins. Spirits of
the Field. Lexington, KY: Wind
Publications, 2004. 225 pages. Trade paperback. $15.00.
The easy explanation for this book is that it is the result of the genealogical
exploration that the author accelerated when in 1997 the Kentucky Department
of Transportation announced that it would tear up cemeteries in the Levisa
River Valley in Pike County, Kentucky, to reconstruct U.S. 460. But that doesn’t
take into account the power and authority of the author. Bruce Hopkins is a
former teacher and current administrator for the Pike County Schools whose
master’s thesis concerned Sherwood Anderson’s mountain novel, Kit
Brandon (1936). Hopkins’ intelligent approach and broad background make
this story come alive. It becomes much more than a personal quest, evolving
at its core into an explanation of the strength of spirit that many draw from
the traditional mountain way of life. Hopkins’ clear and evocative prose
makes it a joy to read. What Hopkins does is something that has been attempted
in all kinds of ways before, but has seldom been accomplished with this depth
of thought, facility of expression and clarity of purpose. This remarkable
book deserves a central place in any regional library.
The Coal Tattoo
Silas House, author of Clay’s Quilt and Parchment
of Leaves, is back
again! His third book, The Coal Tattoo, tells the story of two sisters, Easter
and Anneth Sizemore. These two orphaned girls come from a family “cursed
with death.” This novel explores how they grow together as sisters, then
drift apart and develop separately and finally how they come together again
in a crescendo of a climax which pits them against forces which would destroy
their homeplace. In its starred review, Publishers
Weekly said, “Evocative
prose and unforgettable characters mark this haunting novel. . . . The coal
tattoo—a bluish tinge that seeps under a miner’s skin and leaves
a permanent stain—is a perfect metaphor for the novel’s depiction
of the indelible imprint the land leaves on the human soul.” “Silas
House’s most brilliant novel to date. . . . He plays the language of
The Coal Tattoo like a master fiddler—I gladly stayed up late nights
listening to his music.” – Sena Jeter Naslund.
D. Bruce Justice. Appalachia,
Under God. Otsego, MI: PageFree
Publishing, 2004. 219 pages. Trade paperback. $14.95.
This novel is a sequel to Once Upon a Night Season. In 1970, it takes up the
story of Thomas Meek, a deeply spiritual man who is forced to come to grips
with blatant racism in an Eastern Kentucky mining camp.
Stephen Kirk. Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia.
Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2004. 248 pages. Hardback with dust jacket.
$21.95.
This book has no index, no author’s names in the table of contents and
no clear organizational pattern. Yet in its own subjective way it contains
a wealth of information on a plethora of writers who have some connection or
other with the Asheville area, either obvious as with Gail Godwin who grew
up there or incidental as with Sharyn McCrumb. The author was a student of
Fred Chappell in the UNC-G MFA program and learned of regional authors the
hard way, as the Editor-in-Chief of John F. Blair, Publisher, in Winston-Salem.
Robert Morgan, Charles Frazier, and Jan Karon share these pages with the ghosts
of Carl Sandburg, Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is not an authoritative
or exhaustive reference source, but it is a delightful and fascinating read.
Karen Salyer McElmurray. Surrendered
Child: A Birth Mother’s
Journey. Athens, GA: The University
of Georgia Press, 2004. 249 pages. Hardback with dust jacket.
$29.95.
In 1973, in a small Eastern Kentucky town at the age of sixteen, the author
gave up her baby boy for adoption. This is her story. “That McElmurray
made it out of her trailer-park marriage, out of secretarial and fast food
jobs, through college and on to teaching creative writing courses is admirable.
That she reached the self-awareness to birth this remarkable memoir is a gift
both to her son and to readers.” – Publishers
Weekly. “Riveting
and disturbing, McElmurray’s poetic language and utter honesty lift this
story into the realm of grace—finally this dark memoir is an enlightening
and redemptive work of art.” – Lee Smith. The author teaches at
Georgia College and State University and is the author of a novel, Strange
Birds in the Tree of Heaven, set in Eastern Kentucky.
Gordon B. McKinney. Zeb
Vance: North Carolina’s
Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
477
pages with an index, notes and photos. Hardcover with dust
jacket. $45.00.
Zeb Vance (1830-1894), a native of rural Buncombe County, near Asheville, was
easily the most important Nineteenth Century political figure in North Carolina.
He served both as the Confederate Governor and as a post-Civil-War governor
and was in the U.S. Senate from 1878 until his death. “Gordon McKinney
has written the best study ever of Zeb Vance . . . McKinney is thorough, fair
and unflinching in his analysis.” – Paul D. Escott. “Deeply
researched and carefully crafted, this impressive biography tells us much about
the shortcomings of political leadership in the wartime and postwar South.” – Daniel
W. Crofts. McKinney is the Director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College
and a former history professor at Western Carolina University.
Janet Bailey McQuaid. Security
Breach: The Murder of Tod McQuaid.
Pittsburg, PA: SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc., 2004. 197
pages. Paperback. $14.95.
“This is a true story. I wish to God it weren’t,” begins this
dramatic tale. It is the story of a murder told by the mother of the victim.
It is set primarily in Lewisburg, West Virginia.
Michael Montgomery and Joseph Hall. Dictionary
of Smoky Mountain English. Knoxville,
TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. 710 pages with
both alphabetical and chronological
lists of works cited and endpaper maps. Oversized hardback
with dust jacket. $75.00.
What a contrast this book makes to the scores of small-minded and little “hillbilly
talk” publications. It is exhaustive, taking all of 710 oversized pages
to tell the story, definitive, and painstakingly precise. In fact it is the
culmination of a virtual lifetime of scholarly labor on the part of Michael
Montgomery, a Professor Emeritus from the University of South Carolina, and
Joseph Hall who studied the speech and life of the Smoky Mountain people for
the Park Service from 1937 until 1972. It takes the form of an alphabetical
dictionary that encompasses phrases as well as words and carefully explicates
all. It is a must for writers employing the local idiom as well as for scholars.
Claude S. Phillips. The
Shot from the Mountain: An Appalachian Odyssey.
Allegan Forest, MI: The Priscilla Press, 2004.
285 pages with “Sources Consulted with Commentary.” Paperback.
$16.00.
This is a novel which depicts the mine wars of the 1920s and 1930s in West
Virginia. The author is the son of a West Virginia coal miner and a retired
professor at Western Michigan University. His previous publications primarily
concern Nigerian foreign policy.
Ron Rash. Saints
at the River: A Novel. New York,
NY: Henry Holt and Company, 2004. 239 pages. Hardback with
dust
jacket. $24.00.
Ron Rash’s writing career built slowly with volumes of poetry and short
stories and a novel, One Foot in Eden, published in hardback by an obscure
regional press and then picked up in paperback by a large New York firm. Now,
that career finally takes off with this powerful novel from Henry Holt, one
of New York’s most storied publishers. Told in the voices of various
narrators, it dramatizes the conflict which emerges when a young tourist is
drowned in a Southern Appalachian river, her dead body trapped in a hydraulic.
Her kinfolks want the body removed at any cost, while environmentalists want
the river to stay natural so no precedents can be set for disturbing its course.
Rash’s thematic depth, his compelling craftsmanship with words and his
storyteller’s skill make this one of the year’s finest regional
novels. The author teaches at Western Carolina University.
John B. Rehder. Appalachian
Folkways. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 353 pages with
an index, notes, a list of references, a glossary,
photos, diagrams and maps. Hardback with dust jacket. $39.95.
This book presents a comprehensive overview of regional folkways by a geography
professor at the University of Tennessee. Chapter topics include settlement
patterns, folk architecture, labor, foodways, folk remedies and belief systems,
folk music and art, and folk speech. It may well be destined to become the
definitive one-volume treatment of this important subject.
Brewster Milton Robertson. A
Posturing of Fools. Montgomery,
AL: River City Publishing, 2004. 463 pages. Hardback with
dust jacket. $27.95.
This is a novel about a pharmaceutical salesman attending a symposium at the
Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. “Lively prose gets congested in a
meandering plot, but Robertson’s smart ruminations on class consciousness
and his happy ending make the trip engaging and worthwhile.” – Publishers
Weekly. “Yet another deft and debauchery-tinged romp through those rooms
at the very top.” – Les Standiford. The author was born in Roanoke,
Virginia, and now lives in Fairhope, Alabama. This is his third novel.
Robert Shogan. The
Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America’s
Largest Labor Uprising. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 2004. 271 pages with an index, bibliography,
reference notes and photos. Hardback with dust jacket.
$26.00.
The author became fascinated as a young man by the story of the dramatic uprising
of thousands of West Virginia miners in 1921. Now after a thirty-year career
as a Washington correspondent for Newsweek and The
Los Angeles Times, after
writing ten previous books and while serving as an Adjunct Professor of Government
at Johns Hopkins University, Shogan has returned to research and write the
full story. He brings to this important task a fabulous background in how politics
really works all over the country. Unquestionably, he has created the definitive
history of what he rightly calls “America’s Largest Labor Uprising.”
Florence
Thomas. The Art of Florence Thomas.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2004. 144
pages with an index and many color reproductions of the
artist’s work. Hardback with dust jacket. $45.00.
Florence Thomas, a native of Grassy Creek, North Carolina, began to paint in
high school, and, now in her nineties, she continues to recreate the beautiful
scenes of Appalachia in the soft oils which have brought her fame and fortune.
In this collection of her work, Thomas speaks to her viewer through more than
her colorful images; she also adds personal reflections on her life and work.
Eric Trethewey. Heart’s
Hornbook.
Monterey, KY: Larkspur Press, 2004. 82 pages illustrated
with pencil
sketches by Jo Leadingham. Hardback with dust jacket. $34.00.
What a magnificent melding of the arts of bookmaking, sketching, and poetry!
This book was handset, and all 575 copies were printed on a hand-fed press.
The sketches by Jo Leadingham depict the simple, artful life beautifully, and
the poetry celebrates a rural old-fashioned way of living which is perfectly
consistent with the sketches and the careful crafting of the book itself. Eric
Trethewey lives near Roanoke, Virginia, and teaches at Hollins College. This
is his fifth poetry collection.
Norva Balser Warner. The
Strength of Our People. Parsons,
WV: McClain Printing Co., 2004. 307 pages with an index,
bibliography, notes and photos. Paperback. $17.00.
The author presents here a family history primarily of the Youngs and the Balsers
of Kellys Creek in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley. The stories are fun
and fascinating, and the work is organized, documented, mapped, indexed and
attributed in a truly exemplary way. Thus it is invaluable for those interested
in the area around Mammoth, West Virginia, important for anyone who cares about
West Virginia history and a crucial example for those who aspire to put together
similar works.
Eve S. Weinbaum. To Move A Mountain: Fighting
the Global Economy in Appalachia.
New York, NY: The New Press, 2004. 320 pages with an index and notes. Hardback
with a dust jacket. $29.95.
This important book closely examines three plant closings in East Tennessee:
Greenbrier Industries, an apparel factory in Clinton; Acme Boots in Clarksville;
and a General Electric plant in Morristown. The scene is set, and the penetrating
and insightful perspective of the author is established, in a preliminary chapter
aptly entitled: “Selling Poverty: The Politics of Economic Development
in the South.” Then the three case studies are delivered followed by
a “Conclusion: Local Democracy in a Global Economy.” This book
presents a compelling documentation of dramatic individual and collective struggles
of the masses while it illuminates the machinations of the elites who unleash
the forces which affect us all. “Clear and engaging. These compelling
accounts provide a moving demonstration of the ways grassroots activism can
transform people’s lives. Weinbaum’s stories grip the reader while
blending theory, evidence, and politics in ways that increase the power of
each.” – Dan Clawson. “A powerful and necessary book.” – Congressman
John Lewis.
Eleanor Lambert Wilson. My
Journey to Appalachia: A Year at the Folk School. Fairview,
NC: Bright Mountain Books Inc., 2004. 182 pages with sixty-seven
photos. Paperback.
$20.00.
The year is 1941, and the folk school is the John C. Campbell Folk School in
Brasstown, North Carolina, not far from the Georgia and Tennessee lines. The
author is a Long Island native and Vassar graduate in child development who
has come to Appalachia to work with children for a year but who ended up marrying
a local man and living there throughout her life. This book is not only enjoyable.
It also shines important light on the towering figure of Olive Dame Campbell
and one of the region’s most important institutions.
Newly Reprinted Books
Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson, eds. Listen
Here: Women Writing in Appalachia.
Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
673 pages with an index and selected
bibliography. Paperback. $25.00.
No wonder the hardbacks of this 673-page tome disappeared so fast the publisher
had to rush it into print in paperback. This book is a marvelous confluence
of compelling subject matter and almost-perfectly executed presentation. Anyone
who cares about the literature of our region needs to own enough copies so
that it will continually be at the fingertips because this is the authoritative
guide to its subject. My only wish is that these insightful, wise and meticulous
compilers would produce a companion volume of male voices.
George Constantz. Hollows,
Peepers, & Highlanders:
An Appalachian Mountain Ecology.
Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, a 2004
second edition of a 1993 release.
359 pages with an index, and lists of “sources,” “jargon” and “actors” and
illustrations presumably by the author. Paperback. $18.50.
In contrast to the understandable gloom-and-doom mood of many contemporary
ecology books, this finely illustrated volume maintains an upbeat mood, inviting
the reader to join Constantz in not only saving mountain habitat but also thoroughly
enjoying it. Creative and interesting histories, facts, and personal reflections
flesh out the well-researched information insuring that this colorful exploration
of the mountains will delight, rather than bore, the reader.
Helen M. Lewis and Monica Appleby. Mountain
Sisters: From Convent to Community in Appalachia.
Lexington, KY: The
University Press of Kentucky, 2003. 299 pages with
an index, notes, glossary and photos. Paperback. $25.00.
What a dramatic and inspiring story. In 1967, seventy
Glenmary Sisters working in Appalachia, with the able
assistance of their mother superior, resigned
en masse from their Catholic order, and forty-four organized the Federation
of Communities in Service to continue to work together to serve the region!
The co-authors have literally earned the status of icons in the region in
the last forty years. Helen Lewis is the first professor
ever to offer Appalachian
Studies classes and is widely acclaimed for her work at Highlander and as
a community organizer. Monica Appleby was one of the
chief architects of FOCIS.
She is well known for creating many innovative community-based programs in
Southwest Virginia.
Ron Rash. One Foot in Eden.
New York, NY: Picodor, 2004. 214 pages. Paperback novel.
$13.00.
This novel was the Appalachian Writers’ Association’s “Book
of the Year” for 2002. It is the story of a murder told in five voices,
but it is also much, much more, including the story of a community that faces
the threat of inundation by a dam. “A story of family secrets and family
bonds, of legacies and intense loyalties . . . in prose that thrills like his
poetry. I couldn’t put it down. He is one of our finest writers.” -
Robert Morgan.
Nora Roberts. Birthright.
New York, NY: Jove Publishing, 2004. 502 pages. Paperback
novel. $7.99.
Mega-best-selling popular fiction writer, Nora Roberts, sets this novel in
the Blue Ridge Mountains west of Washington, D.C. It concerns a baby-stealing
ring run by wealthy people who are not culturally Appalachian.
Deborah Smith. The Stone
Flower Garden. New York, NY:
Warner Books, 2003. 390 pages. Paperback. $6.99.
This is the story of two characters, one from a small Georgia town’s
leading marble-mining family and the other from the working class. They briefly
become friends as children and then are thrust by circumstances together again
twenty-five years later. The author, a prolific and popular novelist, lives
with her husband on a North Georgia orchard. She is the recipient of a lifetime
achievement award from Romance Times.
Deborah Smith. Sweet Hush.
New York, NY: Warner Books, 2004. 399 pages. Paperback.
$5.99.
In her ninth novel, Deborah Smith, a Georgia-born author, takes her readers
to the mountains of Georgia to raise hybrid apples on a family farm. It is
the story of a strong matriarch with a son who has fallen in love with the
President’s daughter, the President’s pregnant daughter, that is.
While some of the plot may seem trite and overdone, the strong voice of the
narrator will keep the interest of the reader.
Books for Young Readers
Steve Lyon. The Gift Moves.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 230 pages.
Hardback with dust jacket. $15.00.
Path-Down-the-Mountain is an apprentice weaver living at a future time when
the earth is less populated and less materialistic. This is the story of her
trek from her mountain home near “Boon,” North Carolina, to the
ocean. Written for early teenage students, it provides ample food for thought
as well as enjoyable reading. Steve Lyon lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with
his wife, George Ella Lyon.
William O. Steele. The Buffalo
Knife. New York, NY: Harcourt
Trade Publishers, a 2004 reprint of a 1952 release. 123
pages. Hardback with dust jacket. $17.00.
What a pleasure to see some of the youth novels of William O. Steele (1917-1979)
back in print in attractive editions. This Chattanooga author brings East Tennessee
history to life for youngsters in a way that is unobtrusively sensitive to
peace and justice concerns while it portrays the ethnic and regional violence
which characterized our region’s origins. All four of our boys enjoyed
Steele’s books immensely when they were in elementary school. This novel
for middle elementary students tells the story of nine-year-old Andrew Clark
who embarks with his family and a few others on the arduous land and river
journey from the Holston River Settlements to the Cumberland River Station
in Middle Tennessee which is destined to become Nashville. As they navigate
the treacherous Tennessee River, they encounter the hostile Chickamauga Indians.
William O. Steele. Flaming
Arrows. New York, NY: Harcourt
Trade Publishers, a 2004 reprint of a 1957 release. 146
pages. Hardback with dust jacket. $17.00.
Set during the siege of a fort north of the Cumberland River in Tennessee in
the 1780s, the plot of this youth novel comes to a climax when a young newcomer
shows his courage and wins over the previously skeptical fort youths.
William O. Steele. The Perilous
Road. New York, NY: Harcourt
Trade Publishers, a 2004 reprint of a 1958 release. 156
pages. Hardback with dust jacket. $17.00.
This Newbery Honor Book is set in Tennessee’s Sequatchie Valley in the
fall of 1863. It is the exciting story of fourteen-year-old Chris Brabson,
a Confederate sympathizer, and his brother, Jethro, a Union soldier.
William O. Steele. Winter
Danger. New York, NY: Harcourt
Trade Publishers, a 2004 reprint of a 1954 release. 131
pages. Hardback with dust jacket. $17.00.
This is the story of eleven-year-old Caje Amis. His father, Jared, is a long
hunter who drops him off at the isolated and destitute homestead of his aunt
and uncle. After a panther attack kills their milk-cow and injures the man
of the house, Caje leaves and kills a bear, insuring them meat—and thus
survival—for the winter.
James Rumford. Sequoyah:
the Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 32 pages fully
illustrated by the author. Hardback with
dust jacket. $16.00.
Sequoyah’s achievement, the creation of a written language for spoken
Cherokee, has often been hailed as one of the greatest ever in North America.
This picture book tells his story in English prose by James Rumford, a Cherokee
translation by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby, and colorful illustrations by the author.