Roger May photographs the mountains with the longing of a lost son. He left them when he was just fourteen years old. His family relocated to Raleigh. He did a year of college and then enlisted in the Army. He moved a lot--California, Alaska, back to Raleigh--but something was always missing.
A few years ago, he found himself driving to the mountains more and more. He wasn't just visiting family. Roger started roaming on his own. With a camera on his shoulder, he crisscrossed two states, West Virginia and Kentucky, exploring hollers and hilltops, swimming in broad rivers, and making new friends.
The time added up, a few days here and a few weeks there. In total, Roger spent months exploring his native land. That might not sound like much to anyone who's lived in the mountains lifelong, but for folks like Roger, it's a gift. Over the course of dozens of trips, he reconnected with a home he hadn't known for more than twenty years, and he shot a photo collection that he has described as a visual love letter to Appalachia.
As he was culling the photos, Roger kept thinking of his grandfather, a man who'd been both a coal miner and a minister. In the latter profession, his grandfather invited church members to stand up and testify, to share how God had touched their lives. Roger realized that this is exactly what he was doing with his images. "Through these shots, I am bearing witness of a personal journey," he said, "Of never truly being able to go home again, to seek answers from my ancestral home."
Testify became the name of the photo collection, which has now been featured in Oxford American, the Independent Weekly, and Still: The Journal. A couple of shots from the collection are here, but I also asked Roger to share something new. When he was traveling, he carried a video camera and filmed short clips. He did it less as art and more as a simple reminder. The clips help him remember the sounds and details of a place. By accident, they also turned out to be portraits in motion and an intriguing supplement to the Testify collection.
Roger took a few minutes to tell us about these videos and how they bring his corner of the Appalachian South to life. If you like what has has to say and what he's shot, you can support the creation of a limited edition Testify photo book with a donation on Kickstarter.

*

http://vimeo.com/62944702
TR: Roger, thanks so much for sharing these. Let's dive right in. In this first clip, we see Manuel Collins doing some mean flatfooting. What's Manuel's story?
RM: Manuel lives in War, West Virginia where he is on the city council (or was at the time I shot this). He's a fascinating fellow, full of love for flatfooting. I shot this with Elaine McMillion while she was working in the field for her film Hollow. She and I had been shooting all day and stopped to get some food. Manuel walked in to order a milkshake and spotted Elaine. We all talked, then he offered to dance a while. I don't recall how long Manuel has been flatfooting, but I know he's legendary in those circles and a few bluegrass bands have written songs about him.
http://vimeo.com/62948311
TR: I will never hear of King Coal Highway again and not think of your noggin. What inspired this clever shot?
RM: Frankly, I was devastated by the scale of this mountaintop removal site, which is now the King Coal Highway. It's a relatively new road, which offers these incredible vistas, but the views came at a terrible price, a price that folk downhill will be paying for a long, long time. As I understand it, CONSOL Energy and West Virginia Department of Transit reached an agreement wherein the land, or enough for a highway, would be signed over to the state. What folk don't realize is that it takes years upon years for the valley fills to settle, so several parts of the highway have buckled, causing serious bumps and breaks in the road. Okay, so that was the horrible backstory, but basically I loved the view. And those spring peepers! Man, they were singing to me.
http://vimeo.com/62949237
TR: I could put this on a loop and listen to it all day. I love the sound of railroad cars. What took you to this spot along the tracks?
RM: [My wife] Sarah and I were out looking for pictures one day in McDowell County. We were stuck in traffic waiting for the train to go by. It was hot and we had the windows down. I thought I should be doing something productive, possibly creative. There is something kind of mesmerizing about watching and listening to trains, especially these coal cars. I used Sarah's window to frame the shot and the car door to steady it. She grew up in Mercer County, and I grew up in Mingo County. We didn't meet until 2011 in North Carolina, two West Virginia kids hitting it off.
http://vimeo.com/62950463
TR: Tell us more about these graves. Who were Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers?
RM: Hatfield was the famous Matewan sheriff who shot it out with Baldwin Felts Detective Agency thugs [hired by local coal companies] in downtown Matewan in May 1920, resulting in the deaths of 10 people. Chambers was his deputy. The two were to stand trial in McDowell County. More than a year later, in August of 1921, Hatfield and Chambers were gunned down in broad daylight on the steps of the McDowell County courthouse in Welch. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, and it ultimately led to the miner's march on Blair Mountain, one of the most significant moments in our nation's labor history.
http://vimeo.com/62950787
TR: I can't imagine a better summer day. What took you to the river? Did you jump in after shooting this?
RM: I was in the area making pictures, and I realized that I'd never been in the New River. It seemed like a perfect time to remedy that, so I just sat a while, river-sittin', and took in the scenery. I just couldn't believe how serene, how beautiful the day was.

You know what Appalachian literature needs?
It needs more experimental prose, the kind that makes you cringe like you just saw blood gush. It needs more emotionally explosive writers who treat their books like they're a form of primal therapy. Also, it needs more amputee strippers.
Lucky for us, Scott McClanahan is doing his best to fill all of these niches. His strange tales, which blur the line between fact and fiction, have filled three story collections so far, and now he's releasing a new book.
This one is called Crapalachia: A Biography of A Place. Try not to be turned off by the snarky title. The work is based on his teen years in West Virginia, when he lived with his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Folks who've gotten advanced copies are glowing about it on Goodreads:

Hot damn this book is good. Like, really good. Really really good.
J.A.
Reads like a leap forwards for McClanahan -- and I was already very fond of what McClanahan was doing.
Tobias

McClanahan's writing is kind of groundbreaking. His characters are strange--a suicidal dog, an effete gay who believes you should be kind to everyone, and, yes, an amputee stripper. If Appalachian fiction has one too many wise backwoods grannies, you might say that McClanahan is balancing the scales, and he's doing it in a stream of conscious, obscenity-laced style that is more 1970s West Village than 2010s West Virginia.
While Crapalachia doesn't comes out until March 19, the smarties at Oxford American have stolen us a sneak peak. This is a feat, because the author has been vocal about his aversion to publishing outside his own books. In a recent interview, he told OA, "I feel like my stuff only works when it’s read up against another Scott McClanahan story. Always feels weird to me when you have a distinct voice here and another distinct voice there—like those compilation albums, That’s what I call Music 22!"
So reading a McClanahan story outside a McClanahan book is something rare. Whether you consider a it rare treat or not, well, that's up to you.
I know you give a crapalachia about our region's literature (sorry, couldn't resist!), so I'm excited to hear what you think of the below excerpt. Is McClanahan's style a welcome addition to the Appalachian canon or would you rather stick with the tried and true?

*

CHECKERS

by Scott McClanahan

I was getting tired of playing checkers with Nathan. I even told him a couple of months earlier that I wasn’t going to play anymore because he was always beating me. But here I was playing checkers again for some reason.
I jumped one checker and then waited. He made a move and then I made another move. He made a move and pointed to the toy in front of his chair. It was a ceramic hog with these giant testicles hanging down in the back. There was a rubber frog and a plastic puppy and a small stuffed alligator, too, but he kept pointing at the hog balls. Then he pointed at his chest. I finally said, “Gosh, Nathan, I’m trying to figure out where I’m going to move my checker. I wish you’d quit pointing at the hawg nuts. This is part of the reason I don’t like playing.”
Then Nathan turned the hawg toward Ruby so she could see.
He pointed to the giant testicles and then to himself.
Ruby whispered “shit” beneath her breath and then, “Nathan, you quit talking filthy like that. Can’t believe you put that filthy stuff out there.”
Nathan laughed and pointed at the ceramic hawg and then back to himself, which meant: I got big hawg balls all right, Mother.
I made my move and he laughed again and pointed to the newspaper. Then he pointed to his finger. He was saying, I’m going to get me a woman out of the paper without a ring on her finger.
Then he spread his arms wide. I said, “Nathan you can’t place personal ads for a big fat woman. No woman would answer that.”
Nathan laughed and spread his arms real wide. Well if I’m going to get me a woman I want the biggest goddamn woman I can find. I want one so goddamn big I can’t even get my arms around her big ass. Ruby whispered “shit” beneath her breath and then he jumped my checker. He pointed to the newspaper again and then acted like he was writing. He was telling me that he was going to have me write to one after he beat me. Then I jumped one of his checkers and then another and then another.
I was winning. For the first time I was winning. “Maybe it was a good thing I took a couple of months off.”
I thought that it was because maybe he was bragging so much that he wasn’t paying attention. I jumped another checker and I said, “King me.” He kinged me. I started moving all over the checkerboard. He wasn’t even watching really.
My grandma told Nathan, “Well, you’re going to talk so much no one is going to believe what you say. It’s going to be just like Mary.”

*

THE STORY OF AUNT MARY
I never should have been on the ride. I begged but my aunt talked me into it. She was always saying, “When I was a size 2.” And then a few minutes later she said again, “When I was a size 2.” Then she would remind you later in the day. “Of course, I haven’t always been so big. I used to be size…” I knew all of this was a lie but I still got on the ride with her. I got on the ride and I sat on the right side of her. This was a mistake. The ride started up and my Aunt Mary was pulled by the G-forces to the right. I felt my hip bones rubbing together. My Aunt Mary was not a size 2 anymore. So therefore, I should warn everyone: If you’re ever at the West Virginia State Fair do not ride the Tunnel of Love with my Aunt Mary. I repeat. Do not ride the Tunnel of Love with my Aunt Mary.
Or
YOU WILL REGRET IT!

CONTINUE READING

 

I was tickled pink when an advance copy of Barbara Kingsolver's new novel Flight Behavior showed on my doorstep. You might have read the post I wrote after skimming the first chapter. Over the last few months, I've been savoring the rest of it, all 436 pages.
The book is filled with crystal clear imagery and compelling characters, but be warned, it isn't exactly a romantic look at the Appalachians. You won't find descriptions of dewy mountain laurel shining in the morning sun or wise backwoods grannies who make tea from hand-pulled sassafras. This is a realist's view of modern Appalachia, where the protagonist, Dellarobia Turnbow, lives in an aging ranch house with damaged shingles and a yard that is more mud than grass.
An accidental housewife, Dellarobia found herself pregnant and married younger than she ever imagined. Like dozens of my own friends back home, she excelled in school--says she wanted to go to college so bad her teeth hurt--but her dreams were deferred. Year after soul-sucking year passed, and by the time Flight Behavior opens, Dellarobia is desperate for a break from her toy-strewn living room and domineering in-laws. When we meet her, she is climbing the side of a Tennessee mountain toward an old turkey blind where she plans to have her first extramarital encounter.
As I noted in my prior post, this is the only self indulgent thing Dellarobia has done in forever. She climbs half blind because, in a fit of vanity, she left her glasses at home. As she squints to see briars and loose rocks, she considers the consequences of this affair. Her town will judge her. Her children will be branded. Still, she marches forward and comes upon a scene she cannot explain.
[caption id="attachment_6592" align="alignright" width="199"] Barbara Kingsolver.[/caption]
On the trees around her, she spots brownish clumps. At first, she takes them for a spreading fungus and, preoccupied, keeps walking. When she reaches an overlook, her view expands and, though her vision is blurred, Dellarobia can tell that every single trunk and twig is covered. The color is not brown so much as red. She faces an entire valley blanketed with some strange smokeless fire. It moves in waves, releasing bits like sparks from a burning pine log, but it does not crackle. This is some silent miracle, and Dellarobia knows what it means. She must go back to her family, to her cluttered yard, and to the future she was trying to escape.
Turns out, Dellarobia's future isn't as certain as she thought. As news of the miracle spreads, members of her small town congregation begin to call her a saint. Strangers ask if she's the one who had the vision. While Dellarobia can't explain what she saw, she knows why she was on that ridge, and she just wants the spotlight off of her.
That, of course, is impossible. As the book progresses, we learn that her blurred vision was actually a mass of monarch butterflies. For reasons that no one understands, most of the North American population has descended on this hollow rather than continue their usual migration into Mexico. The year's unusual warmth and endless rain may have something to do with it, but whatever the cause, the butterflies have made an unlucky choice. They've settled on land that Dellarobia's father-in-law plans to clear-cut. He's looking to sell the wood.
As soon as I hit on this environmental twist, I remembered the film Citizen Ruth. It was a 1996 comedy that centered around a drug-addicted, pregnant teen who becomes the inadvertent flashpoint for the abortion debate. Pro-life and pro-choice advocates tried to sway Ruth with bribes and deceit. After shrill protestors draw media attention, Ruth finds herself in the middle of an around the clock, nail biter of a news story. The whole country is asking "will she or won't she have an abortion." Harnessing the energy around this hot topic, the film builds a farce that skewers all sides.
I could see the same thing happening here. Media, environmental protesters, religious extremists, scientists--I expected them all to descend on Dellarobia in a rush. I figured they'd be as subtle as the Feds at the end of E.T. They'd swoop in and ruin the magic, the miracle. Their big, loud plodding presence would destroy the beautiful scene that Dellarobia found.
I was right; all of these groups showed, but Kingsolver surprised me in how they showed. They didn't come in a swarm. They didn't fill the hollow all at once. They made some noise, but it built slowly.
Rather than a team of scientists, a lone entomologist arrives first. Ovid Byron is a warm and charming man with a lilting Virgin Island accent. While Dellarobia is intimidated by his Harvard degree, she also admires Ovid's intellect and his commitment to the butterflies. Talking to Dovey, her sassy best friend, Dellarobia says that he's "like Bob Marley’s cute brother that avoided substance abuse and got an education.”
Ovid could have easily become a parody of scientists, but Kingsolver makes him something more. He serves as a gentle counterpoint to Dellarobia's underwhelming home life. He is kind to her children, respectful of her gravel-hauling husband, but as the handsome professor builds a lab in the family's sheep barn, he opens a new world of possibilities for Dellarobia.
This is a tricky balance. In Appalachia, there is real tension between everyday folk and intellectuals, between locals and outsiders, between people like Dellarobia, who can't even afford decorations for her Christmas tree, and the privileged lab students who join Ovid. "These people had everything," Dellarobia thinks when she meets them, "Education, good looks, boots whose price tag equaled her husband's last paycheck."
Dellarobia is drawn to their work, to the fancy scales they use to weigh the butterflies, to the first intellectual challenge she's experienced for years, but still, she distrusts them. In another passage, she draws out this contrast by describing audiences she has seen on TV:

Yuppies watched smart-mouthed comedians who mocked people living in double-wides and listening to country music. The very word Tennessee made those audiences burst into laughter, she'd heard it. They would never come see what Tennessee was like, any more than she would get a degree in science and figure out the climate things Dr. Byron described.

Other reviewers have described Flight Behavioras a story about climate change. That's certainly a central theme, and I like that Kingsolver explores the impact it could have on everyday folk, but I think there's more going on in the book. Flight Behavior is also about the social fabric of Appalachia, about people who work hard for every dollar, people who's sole extravagance is an ATV, people who see professors and scientists when they're flipping past the Discovery Channel but don't know what to do when a bunch of intellectuals start rooting around in their own backyards.
I have to imagine that this part of the book is informed by Kingsolver's own life. She is a wildly successful author who lives in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. She not a resident of Blacksburg, where she'd be surrounded by Virginia Tech intellectuals, or even Roanoke, where she'd find a creative class. Kingsolver lives in farm country. Her neighbors are probably like Dellarobia in many ways, and I can't help but wonder if Kingsolver faced a similar chasm when she first moved to the area in 2004.
However much the book is or is not based on reality, the class divide in Flight Behavior is handled deftly. Kingsolver doesn't demonize either side or resort to tired stereotypes. She crafts fully realized characters with complex personalities and pasts. It takes many, many pages to pull that off, but it is ink well spent.
For me, reading Flight Behaviorwas like a long visit home. The characters rang true, and I identified with their lives. I know what it’s like to downgrade my purchases in a discount store because I’m broke. I know how it feels to choose my words around privileged people so they don't think I'm ignorant. When outsiders visit my homeland, I too worry that they’re pretending they’re on some hillbilly reality show--Redneck Survivor as Dellarobia puts it.
As an Appalachian native, I identified with Flight Behavior. To me, the book seemed real, more real than other novels set in the region. It was smart without being high-falutin’ and entertaining without launching into a flight of fancy.
Maybe it will feel the same for you. Maybe it already has. Are you reading Flight Behavior?
If so, let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. If not, today might be your lucky day. Harper, the book’s publisher, sent me an extra hardback copy, and one lucky person is going to win it.
To enter, just visit The Revivalist's Facebook page and click “share” beneath the November 24, 2012 post about Flight Behavior. Next weekend, I will pick one winner from folks who’ve shared the post by 9 am EST on December 1, 2012.
All you have to do is watch Facebook next weekend to see if you won!

None of us are old enough to remember when handmade goods were the only goods. I'm talking life before Amazon, before Walmart, even before Sears. You have to go way back to hit an era when woodworkers and metal smiths were essential to daily living.
Back then, craftsmen used old-fashioned tools and muscle grease to create our home goods. There was no particleboard or Polypropylene. They cut pieces from real trees. They forged metal. And their products lasted a lifetime, often more than one.
Heirlooms like these are in short supply today. The stuff we pick up from big box stores won’t be around for our great, great grandchildren. Even our houses are semi-disposable—drywall and pressed wood that threatens to give if you lean too hard.
Look around your place. Do you see anything that’s built to last?
I’m not talking about objects you inherited from prior generations. Have you picked up anything new that could be considered an heirloom in one hundred years?
[caption id="attachment_6567" align="alignright" width="216"] Kevin Riddle and his wooden pitchforks. Image courtesy of Kevin.[/caption]
If not, then it’s time to visit Kevin Riddle. This Virginia woodworker and coppersmith is an intentional throwback. Rather than buy lumber from The Home Depot, Kevin takes down his own trees and shaves the wood using a drawknife. Rather than hold his pieces together with metal nails, he uses wood pegs that will not rust.
I visited Kevin’s workshop in Eagle Rock a few months back. It’s on land that’s been in his family for generations. He and his father constructed every building there. They used a mix of traditional and modern techniques, but over time, Kevin was drawn more to the old ways of building things. He did mention that he likes to keep up to date with modern tools by reading magazines and rowsing sites like https://www.toolnerds.com/saws/table-saw/hybrid/ as a hobby and as a way not to fall behind.
He showed me around his shop, which was filled with tools I didn’t even recognize. “They invented this technology in the colonial period,” he said, pointing out objects like his shaving horse, which is a vice and a workbench combined, “Had it through the 1950s, and then it started to fade out.”
Kevin got serious about traditional woodworking twenty years ago. “Then,” he says, “There were still a few old timers around.” He’d go and chat them up about their gardens and their grandbabies, and in the process pick up old-fashioned woodcrafting techniques.
Over time, he advanced to the point where school groups were asking for demonstrations and movie producers were seeking him out for props. For instance, he made old-fashioned tools for Somersby, a Richard Gere and Jodie Foster drama that was shot north of him, in Lexington, during the early 1990s.
Today, Kevin has expanded his craft to include copper work. He said, again, there was no apprenticeship to learn it. He just picked up a little here and a little there.
[caption id="attachment_6570" align="alignleft" width="240"] Tools in Kevin's workshop.[/caption]
Piecemeal as it may be, Kevin’s education has paid off. He now produces stunning kettles, some small enough for a bushel of veggies, others big enough to cook up a season’s worth of apple butter. He creates wooden pitchforks and benches. He even makes ox yokes, though he admits that folks usually use them for decorative purposes nowadays.
Drawing from his craft and also his frontier heritage, Kevin speaks on everything from wooden folk toys to making apple butter, from moonshine to coal mines. He can even help you identify those old tools you’ve found in your basement.
So if you’re eager to learn more about your roots or pick up a new family heirloom, get in touch with Kevin. He's happy to help you out.
And if you already have some special pieces, please tell us about them. What have you made or bought that will be around in one hundred years?

I just learned that a member of The Revivalist's Facebook community is making great Appalachian t-shirts. Kathy Anderson, a West Virginian native who now lives within spitting distance of the Georgia mountains, sells these gems under the moniker Appalachian Dry Goods.
Kathy paints the beautiful watercolors that adorn the shirts herself. She silk screens them, and prints them on carefully selected t's that were made "from seed to shirt" in South Carolina. The cotton is 100 percent organic. No synthetic fertilizers, harsh chemicals, or pesticides are used when these shirts are made.
South Carolina's soil and waterways thank her for that, and we thank her for her lovely designs. Kathy says that she has always thought the mountains were under-represented in Southern culture, so she paints "the things of the Appalachian region that she loves - like the wildlife in the rivers and mountains."
Personally, I dig her fish shirts, but I have to say that my personal favorite is the Appalachian topographical map t, mostly because when I look close, I think I can see my momma's house!
Which do you like?

As I explained a few week's back, Jim the Boy was presented to me by The Great Book Pile along with another book--Child of the Mountains. I am convinced that these two young adult novels are, in fact, companions.
Don't get me wrong. The authors and publishers probably had no connection, but the books themselves compliment one another so well. Both have Appalachian themes. Both are young adult novels with grown-up appeal. One focuses on a boy in the early 20th century and the other on a girl during the same timeframe.
I can take no credit. The Great Book Pile--my sentient mess of unread books--made the connection. It catapulted these two books up, overtop dozens of others, to the top of the cluttered shelf, insisting that I read them. Whats more, I think The Great Book Pile intended that I share them with you.
Please don't roll your eyes like an unwanted evangelist has shown at your door. I'm serious. The Great Book Pile has your interests at heart. It is a literary sage. It will deliver you from the doldrums of chick lit and Tolkien knock-offs if you let it.
Be brave. Have faith. The Great Book Pile loves you. It will be your guide.
All it asks is that your read, Read, READ!

*

Jim the Boy
In the book's first pages, we learn that a new school is opening in Aliceville, North Carolina. It will have electric lights, giant blackboards, and a principal, which is as foreign to Jim as the school's glowing bulbs. His old school just had two teachers. It didn't need an administration, but this school will be big. It has been under construction for as long as Jim can remember, and everyone will go there, even hillbilly kids from Lynn's Mountain, kids that Jim distrusts:
Jim had often seen hillbilly kids with their fathers at the store. They stared at Jim as if they hated him already; he didn't like them either. Jim's grandfather lived on Lynn's Mountain. Jim had never laid eyes on him, and did not think he ever would. Mama would not permit it. Jim was a little afraid of going to school with kids who might know his grandfather, but he had not told anyone that.
This short passage sets the stage for Jim the Boy, a beautiful and understated book. There are no mysteries or monsters, just a country boy who learns from his family--a single mother and a trio of uncles who raise him on their farm--and from his own fears.
Jim has reason to be weary of his grandfather. The man is, in fact, a scoundrel, a violent moonshiner who pulled a gun on Jim's daddy and terrorized his granny. His cruelty made him a family legend, a boogieman of sorts, and in Jim's young mind, he has tainted everyone and everything from Lynn's Mountain.
As unlikely as it sounds, Jim's fear and prejudice hold this book together...or rather, these books together. The author, Tony Early, has written Jim the Boy as a collection of books, Book I: Birthday Boy, Book II: Jim Leaves Home, Book III: Town Boys and Mountain Boys, and so on.
Each could stand on its own. They are simple, clear windows into this young man's life, but when linked together, they reveal something greater, an elegant narrative about a boy who faces his bias against mountain people.
Now, instilling prejudice in a protagonist is risky. It could ruin Jim, make him unlikeable. But Early shows this boy with bone bare honesty, and we can't help but care for him.
We see Jim's gratitude when he receives a baseball and glove as a gift. "Jim gazed up at his mother and the uncles as if he had a wonderful story to tell them but could not remember their language."
We hear him say with plain and true love that he doesn't need a Daddy because he has three of them--his mother's brothers.
We share his wonder when he sees the ocean for the first time. "Each wave when it crashed and broke sounded to Jim like the angry breath of God."
We learn that Jim is not extraordinarily bad or extraordinarily good. He is a regular boy, flawed, a bit short tempered, but striving to do right.
Doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't it sound like all of us?
This is Tony Earley's gift. He can take his understated characters, his simple scenes, and fill them with humanity. Take this section for instance--Jim is with his mother, Cissy, who's temperament is usually even. They are looking at blackbirds that have gathered by their farmhouse. Jim is speculating on how many his uncle could kill with a shotgun:
"I bet he could kill a hundred," says the boy. "Maybe two hundred."
Cissy's eyes begin to fill. She doesn't know if the boy can even hear her; she doesn't know if she has spoken out loud. She blinks so that she can see clearly.
"What's wrong, Mama?" he asks. 
Cissy waves him away, doesn't dare look at him. She unties her apron and takes it off. She pushes her hair behind her ears. She takes a few hesitant steps toward the tree, then breaks into a run; she reaches down with one hand and pulls up her skirt so that she can run faster; she is surprised by how good running feels. 
The boy trots along behind her, his eyes wide. He has never seen her run before. She has not run a step in his lifetime. 
"Mama," he says, "Mama, where are you going?"
Cissy begins to wave the apron over her head.
"Shoo!" she yells. "Fly away! Leave!"
When she closes to within thirty yards of the tree, the flock lifts as one body with a percussive, ripping sounds, as if the air itself is tearing. It moves away from the tree, a creature with a single mind; it flattens and stretches out and winds fluidly across the field, like water seeking a low place.
Cissy runs a few more steps, still flapping the apron, then slows to a stop. Her heart throbs wildly inside her chest; her breath burns in her throat. She stares at the guant limbs of the walnut tree, the empty sky. She hears the birds shouting in the dark woods along the river. They sound angry, indignant, accusing. In the morning they would be gone. She wheels and stares down at the boy. He backs up a step. When she steps toward him, he backs up again. She points at the tree.
"There, Mr. Glass," she says. "It is winter now."
I nearly wept when I read this. I can't say why. I don't fully understand why Jim's talk upset Cissy so, but I was caught up in her reaction. I felt her sadness, her desperation to save the birds, and I think it's because Early felt it too. He conveys his characters' hurts and worries with such crystal clarity, I have to believe that he cares for them.
In this way, he reminds me of another young author, Josh Weil, whom I interviewed a couple of years back. Maybe this is an emerging vein with male Appalachian writers. These two--Earley and Weil--treat their characters with tenderness, with a sympathy that I don't see in the generation before them. Breece D'J Pancake, Pinckney Benedict, and Ron Rash are some of my favorites, but they have all written gritty, gothic stories full of drug addicts and low-downs who kill, connive, and harm.
Maybe this is something new. Maybe mountain men are developing a soft spot.
I guess it's too soon to say, but I do know that I admire Early. He finds beauty in the everyday. He honors the good hearts of country folk. He commits to loving his characters, and, for me, that counts more than all the trailer park murders and meth-induced rampages in the world.

It's Labor Day,  and we've scattered to the winds. Some of you might be at the beach, others at the lake. I'm in Savannah, marveling over Spanish moss and architecture.
I don't know about you, but when I'm gallivanting away from the mountains, I look for signs of home--a busker playing the banjo or sorghum cookies in a local bakery.
These Appalachian mainstays are like bits of meat on a long line. They pop up far from shore when I'm swimming in strange waters.
Once I was eavesdropping in a Lincoln, Nebraska coffee shop and heard people talking about the hammer dulcimer. Another trip, I saw country fried steak on a fancy menu in San Francisco. I felt a rush of warmth both times. Maybe it was pride, 'cause it made me want to jump up and holler, "Hey y'all, I'm a mountain man!"
And then I was ready to pack my car, hop a plane, stick out my thumb--find some way to get back home. It was like the mountains themselves were reeling me in.
I think that this is what today's poem is about-the things that draw us back, cultural constants that remind us of where we're from. These touchstones existed when we were born, and they will be there when we're gone. That's what makes them special.

*

Arborvitae
That tree was big enough for all of us–
Arborvitae arms spread wide to hold–
We swept your floors with branches, laughing.
I moved from child to teen, laughing
with my boyfriend; I did not see the space between us.
Your branches cracked and bowed under winter’s hold.
I came back, so my children could hold
your green rough shoots between fingers, laughing
As you kindly bend to us.
Earth-bound giant, you’ll hold our laughing, until there is not one
of us left.

*

Heather Day Gilbert wrote this poem. Reared in West Virginia, she left for fifteen years and recently returned with a sweet Yankee husband. She is shopping a norse-themed novel called God’s Daughter with publishers and contemplating a book series set in her home state.
Also, did you notice the poem's pattern? It's a tritina, which is built around a certain kind of repetition. Post a comment letting us know what you think, and keep your eyes open for signs of Appalachia while you're exploring the world.

Want to submit an Appalachian poem or short story for publication on The Revivalist? Just click the “contact me” link off to the right. Please paste the body of your work into the message.

Summer may be waning, but the sunglass season is hardly over. Around Labor Day, lakes and streams will bounce sunbeams into your eyes; you'll drive toward beautiful but blinding sunsets this fall; and in a few short months, the glare of snow will have you wincing like you've been sucking limes.
Truth is, you need shades year round, and I may have just found your new favorite pair. These timber adorned beauties are made by Tumbleweeds Handcraft in Chatanooga, Tennessee. They come in more than a dozen different styles--wayfarer, two tone, striped, heart shaped, etc.--and they all sport real wood veneer.
The couple behind the frames, Doug Switalski and Becca Skeels, make them in their historic St. Elmo neighborhood home. They start with a pre-manufactured frame and employ traditional veneering techniques to apply the wood. The veneer itself ranges from mahogany to walnut to teak, depending on the style.
It takes time and patience to adhere thin strips of wood to something as tiny as an ear piece, but it's well worth it when Doug and Becca are done. Their beautiful frames are handmade art pieces and--shhhhh, don't tell anyone--but they're also a bargain. I've seen solid wood frames that don't look nearly as good but cost hundreds of dollars more.
As if that's not nifty enough, this wood-working duo are also fun people. When they're not making glasses, he's snapping long exposure photos or skateboarding and she's out shooting arrows or baking at home. Becca likes to say that they spend their time doing "all the cool stuff every 12-year-old vows to do when they are all grown up and don’t have parents telling them what to do."
Lucky for us, that includes making the raddest, handmade shades in the Appalachian South.

Remember Old Crow Medicine Show's "tour of dreams?"
This is their ride in vintage train cars from San Francisco to New Orleans. With two other alt-folkish bands--Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharp & The Magnetic Zeroes--they played outdoor shows in train yards and fields. They jammed all night as they rode the rails. They stopped to swim. They drank a lot. They flirted with one another. And they invited a local high school band to play onstage.
I know all of this because the trip was filmed. The documentary Big Easy Express captured some of the ride's hijinks but mostly its music. I watched it last night. I thought it was beautifully shot. The music was incredible. I was singing to my dog and clapping along. (Did I mention that I also had a little bourbon?)
At points, I wished for a hint o' plot or real interviews, something that helped me understand why band members kept calling this the trip of a lifetime. Instead I got music--jams in fields; jams onstage; jams in a half a dozen beautiful train cars; jams with footage of western landscapes running overtop them, shot from the top of the train, making me feel like I was sitting up there with the arid wind in my face, the desert and sharp mountains around me lit by the setting sun.
Maybe that's answer enough--2800 miles of breathtaking scenery, a week and half of nonstop music--that would make any musician say that they felt like" a beam of light was shooting down on them," that they were "riding into the magic," that this beautiful old train was "bound for glory."
Now you can see if you agree. Big Easy Express is available on iTunes for just $3.99, and the clip below provides a sneak peak. It's one of my favorite scenes. It's quiet at the front end, but stick with it. There's a big reward right around the middle.
What do you think? Is Big Easy Express a documentary masterpiece or a glorified music video? Maybe a little of both?
Leave your cheers and jeers below.
[youtube]Gt8yv_Kja3Q[/youtube]

In my back room, I have a dozen long shelves. Most of them are reserved for neatly aligned books. These are books I’ve read. They stand upright, looking proud, looking important, looking like all books should.
On one side of one shelf, though, there's this mad jumble. This is the book pile. It consists of books I’ve not yet read. Some lie on their backs. Half are on their sides. Others are wedged in at awkward angles. It looks like they’re climbing overtop one another, trying to get my attention, clambering for the top.
This mess is not my fault. I swear. I’ve arranged the book pile many times, but somehow, it keeps ending up this way. Over the course of years, I have come to accept the one plausible explanation. I figured I was coocoo for thinking it at first, but now I know that this must be the truth:
My book pile is a sentient creature.
Before you close this post and delete all links to my blog, hear me out. I’ve not come to believe this just because of the spontaneous messes. Making those is not all the book pile does. It also picks out books for me, and it’s not indiscriminate about it. Whenever I’m ready to read something new, it’s like the book pile has already gauged my mood or emotions or life path or something, because the right book is always there on top, just like it has been hand picked and launched up at some crazy angle—one that is so eye catching, so unlike the rest of the clutter, I can’t miss it.
This has happened dozens, maybe hundreds of times now, and each time the book pile has been dead-on. Most recently, it surfaced two impossibly similar books. Both were young adult novels. Both had Appalachian themes. One was about a girl. The other was about a boy. They caught my eye back to back and turned out to be perfect compliments to one another.
The first, Child of the Mountains, was a suspenseful slice of mountain life, filled with the energy of a girl edging into adolescence under desperate conditions. The second, Jim the Boy, is quieter; the writing has an elegant simplicity. It is built around the truths that are found in country living and the common circumstances that turn a boy into a man.
Tell me that's a coincidence.
These stories are like matching bookends—some kind of literary set sent to me by the Great Book Pile, which warrants capitalization for it is now my guru, my swami, my sage.
Be warned. I’m recruiting converts. After reading today’s review of Child of the Mountains and the upcoming one on Jim the Boy, you might find yourself making a pilgrimage to my shelves and chanting right alongside me - “All hail The Great Book Pile!”

*

Child of the Mountains
When we meet Lydia Hawkins, she has been torn from Paradise, the aptly named hollow she calls home. There she churned apple butter with her beloved granny, played with her precocious younger brother BJ, and traded hugs with her loving momma. That is, until her whole world fell apart.
Lydia is on her own now. Her granny and BJ have both passed, and while her momma is alive, she is imprisoned, serving time for a crime she didn’t commit.
Lydia proves to be a pragmatic girl. She tries to make the best of things. She ignores bullies at school and steers clear of the aunt and uncle who have taken her in, observing that these relatives “ain’t got nary a clue about what to do with me.”
She's right. They treat her more like a boarder than a bereft child, so Lydia learns that she has to make it on her own, sometimes taking her independence to extremes. For instance, while Lydia is alone “the way of women” comes upon her. It's her first period, and she does not call for her aunt or seek help from any other woman. Her momma told her that this would happen before she was shipped off to prison, so Lydia takes matters into her own hands. She finds an old rag and safety pins. She hides in the bathroom, and she fashions a maxi-pad.
I'll admit it; I was taken aback when I read this scene. It's not because I'm squeamish about menstruation. I was raised around too many women for that. This is a transformative moment in a young woman's life, and I'm glad it's in the book. When I saw how Lydia handled it, though, I kept thinking man, this is one hardcore little girl!
As the book progressed, I was relieved to see that the main character is not all pluck and fortitude. She does feel overwhelmed by her horrific circumstances. She gets down. She is full of self-doubt. I like this. It makes Lydia more dynamic. It gives me, the reader, a chance to identify with her loneliness and worry, not just admire her bravery. When she asks God to send her baby brother back because she’d rather he be a ghost haunting her than just be dead, I hurt for Lydia. I want to reach into the book and hug this child who has lost so much.
We see pleas like this with complete clarity, because the author, Marilyn Sue Shank, has employed a common device. She has written each chapter as a journal entry from her protagonist. In lesser hands, this can become trite, over-emphasizing a character’s whims and weighing down the story’s action. Shank, however, keeps her plot moving. She starts with two great hooks—a girl trying to fend for her self and the mystery surrounding her mother’s incarceration—and she uses them to advances the storyline in every single chapter.
That's impressive, but what distinguishes Shank's book is its local flavor. Child of the Mountain is not just a young adult novel; it is also a study in Appalachian culture. Shank has crafted lovely descriptions of the land, and she has written Lydia with a distinct mountain accent. Through most of the novel, this is a delight—reading the twang and idioms that define our region, seeing a well-rounded character cut from the same cloth as the people I love—but at points, Lydia’s language becomes so archaic it verges on the unbelievable. The book is set in the 1950’s after all, the era of jet travel and frozen dinners. I question whether a preteen girl—even one who was raised in a secluded hollow and influenced by a grandmother who would have been born at the turn of the century—would use words like “nary” and “iffen.”
This reflects my one complaint about the book. Shank does a great job of showcasing mountain culture, but she does so bluntly. Lydia has well-formed opinions about unions and mine pay for a girl her age. Her granny touts the benefits of sassafras tea like she’s selling it. And her teacher, in the midst of an otherwise intimate conversation with Lydia, gets downright didactic when he explains the relationship between Appalachian English and Old English:
“Did you know Shakespeare loved to write double and even triple negatives? He used multiple negatives to emphasize a point, just as mountain people continue to do today…Mountain people are not ignorant. They’re merely using a way of speaking that other English-speaking cultures have forgotten.”
Could this be more artfully delivered?
Sure. But Lord forgive me, because I shouldn't be complaining. This book is a gem. I mean, how often do you see such reverence for mountain people?
Child of the Mountains is a solid novel that does more than entertain. It connects young readers to the Appalachian South. The ones who hail from elsewhere will learn to respect the region, and natives will swell with pride when they read it. The book reminds them that their hills and hollers aren't common. Like Lydia, they live someplace special.

One of our newish neighbors (Barbara Kingsolver) has a brand new novel (Flight Behavior) coming out in November, and I just received an advance copy (Thanks, HarperCollins!).
This novel is a homecoming of sorts. Like her first book, The Bean Tree, it pays homage to Kingsolver's rural roots. She was raised in Carlisle, a small town in eastern Kentucky, but in the 1970s, she moved to Arizona, where she spent nearly two decades. The desert inspired many of her subsequent books, but in 2004 Kingsolver returned east, settling in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.
Her Appalachian home was spotlighted three years later. The book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Lifeprovided a true account of her family's attempt to sustain themselves with food that was grown on their Southwest Virginia land or sourced locally. I've not read it, but it made Time's top ten list for the year. Rick Bass, a favorite writer of mine, said that "this text will fold quietly into the reader's consciousness, with affecting grace and dignity, because of its prose and sensibilities."
As I stare at the cover of Kingsolver's latest novel, I hope that her signature charm carries over to this book. Flight Behavior tackles the polarizing issue of climate change, but it does so from a fresh angle. The novelist illustrates how sudden upheaval in the natural world might impact ordinary, mountain people.
The book opens on Dellarobia Turnbow, a young mother with faded ambitions. She married at seventeen and has been raising babies and biting her tongue around her husband's antagonistic family ever since. Dellarobia is walking up a mountain side. She is beset by doubt and consternation, but nonetheless, she is headed toward an old turkey blind, the only place private enough to meet a younger man.
This is the first time Dellarobia has stepped out of her motherly role, the first self indulgent thing she's done in years. As she dodges briars, she considers the consequences of an affair. Her town will judge her. Her children will be branded. Still, she is marching forward when she comes upon a scene she cannot explain.
On the trees right around her, she see's brownish clumps. She wonders if they're a spreading fungus and, preoccupied, keeps walking. When she reaches an overlook, her view expands and Dellarobia sees that every single trunk and twig is covered. The color is not brown so much as red. She faces an entire valley blanketed with some strange smokeless fire. It moves in waves, releasing bits like sparks from a burning pine log, but it does not crackle. This is a silent miracle, and Dellarobia knows what it means. She must go back to her family, to her cluttered yard, and to an uncertain future.
I've skimmed this part, the beginning of the book, and after such a bold opening, I'm excited to read the rest. Watch for my review sometime between now and the book's release in November. In the meantime, folks who have read the book are leaving spirited comments all around the web. These come from the literary site Goodreads:

"As Kingsolver puts it, poor, rural, Southerners are the people in the United States most likely to be effected by climate change. Unfortunately, they are also the demographic least likely to have any accurate information about what it is, and what that means for them, and the world." Sara Beigle
If you've put your hands on a copy of Flight Behavior, please let us know what you think. If you'd like to reserve a copy, you can do so on Amazon and they will ship it to you after November 6, the day the book comes out.

 

I haven't published much poetry on The Revivalist, and there's no excuse for that. I'm a sucker for rhythm and imagery. In fact, I like poems a lot. When I see a good one, though, it has usually been published elsewhere, and it's some work to hunt down a poet and request reprint rights. We're talking pure laziness on my part, I know.

Lucky for me, Sarah Loudin Thomas made things easy. She ran the poem "Mountain Mama" on her own website where an email address was just a few pixels away. Even I could manage to copy, paste, and send a message, asking to share this piece with y'all.

I was thrilled when Sarah said, "Yes," because this poem is about as Appalachian as they come. It's all about fragile beauty and precarious lives. It's about grim reality getting entangled with false hope. It's about the unique losses that mountain people face every single day.

After reading it, please leave a comment telling Sarah what you think.

***

Mountain Mama

There is truth in the trailer park

and honesty in the car on blocks.

Starvin’ Marvin and “as seen on TV”

live cheek by jowl with the likes

of handmade quilts and apple butter;

old-time music and the oral tradition.

Some folks say it isn’t True,

isn’t the way things used to be.

But lose a grandfather to the mines,

an uncle to the war, your mother

to a cancer that gnaws at her soul—

lose a child for no reason you can see.

Then you’ll find the fragile beauty

in the never-ending yard sale.

You’ll learn to love the tourists

who buy corncob pipes, coonskin caps,

and lumps of coal carved like bears.

When the giant timber companies

run the local sawmill out of money

and Aunt Eunice can’t remember your name—

when your best friend moves to California

and minimum wage is doing alright, man.

Then you’ll find the potent wisdom

in workers’ compensation, food stamps

and tonight’s lotto number—

dear God let me win.

A one in a billion chance is better

than watching the land your ancestors

cleared wash away . .  . no wish away

on the promises of strip mines

and a future you can’t afford to wait.

At night, the lights from Wal-Mart glow

like the promise of a better tomorrow.

In addition to poems, Sarah Loudin Thomas writes books. In fact, she is seeking publication of her first novel. Originally from West Virginia, she writes pieces that reflect her love for Christ first and her Appalachian heritage second. She has previously published poetry and articles in magazines including Appalachian Heritage, The Pisgah Review and Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine. You can learn more about Sarah on her website Sarah Anne Loudin Thomas: Everyday miracles happen every day.