Appalachia Now hops on the back of a motorcycle for a wild ride through the hills we know best--Vicco, Hazard, branches, mine access roads. Fiddle tunes and black lung and the photoelectric gleam of stars. But these haunting stories take us way beyond the familiar. They are as skillfully wrought with the visible world as they are with the luminous being in the hollow of a cupped hand. I couldn't put this book down and when I did, my heart ached to step back inside the pages. ~Karen McElmurray
Appalachia verite...This fine collection edited and introduced by Charles Dodd White and Larry Smith includes this short fiction:
"On the Road with C.T. Savage" by Meredith Sue Willis, "Burning Off into Forever" by David Joy, "The Wife You Wanted" by Marie Manilla, "Wild Kind" by Matt Brock, "The Hanging" by Darnell Arnoult, "Confluence" by Mesha Maren, "Covered Bridge" by Taylor Brown, "Obituary" by Jacinda Townsend, "Cell-Life" by Carrie Mullins, "The Hawkins Boy" by Charles Dodd White, "White Freightliner Blues" by Jon Sealy, "That Familiar Ache" by Savannah Sipple, "Monkey Proof" by Rusty Barnes, "Echolocation" by Mark Powell, "A Story to Tell" by Chris Holbrook, "Back Porch" by Chris Offutt
Fiction. Appalachian Literature. Edited by Charles Dodd White and Larry Smith. Sequel to the best selling DEGREES OF ELEVATION (Bottom Dog Press, 2010), this volume features work by Meredith Sue Willis, David Joy, Marie Manilla, Matt Brock, Darnell Arnoult, Mesha Maren, Taylor Brown, Jacinda Townsend, Carrie Mullins, Charles Dodd White, Jon Sealy, Savannah Sipple, Rusty Barnes, Mark Powell, Chris Holbrook, and Chris Offutt.
"APPALACHIA NOW is an essential and necessary collection of stories. For too many, the people of Appalachia are little more than stereotypes. APPALACHIA NOW undoes that injustice by representing the real people of Appalachia today without forgetting that we can't help but be shaped by our geography. Appalachia is as much a character here as are any of these diverse, complex, troubled characters. This collection is a delvingan invitation into a world often represented by pop culture, but seldom as authentically nor as skillfully as by the writers herein."Jeff Vande Zande
