Appalachian literary fiction draws me to it, the language and texture, the attention to place, gender, socioeconomics and the complicated relationships it forms—family, land, labor, religion and survival. Having grown up as a young girl in northern Appalachia, I return particularly to writers who resist flattening the region or its people into stereotypes. These are the novels I have read, admired, obsessed over and returned to—the books that have shaped my thinking about Appalachia literature and my own writing. Naturally, Appalachian women writers are a particular interest and I often ask myself, why are there not more northern Appalachian writers?
I was born in Marietta in the Ohio River Valley. I lived on both sides of the river, Ohio and West Virginia, and grew to love its tributaries, especially the Muskingum. I spent many mornings and afternoons fishing with my grandfather, Pappy, and making corn husk dolls with my grandmother, Mammy. They were on my stepfather’s side. My mother’s side of the family founded Rinard Mills, where several of my kin are buried on a mountain top, still, including my Grandma Ruthie, where I laid her to rest, her coffin topped with yellow roses.
The family cemetery looks down into the valley. It is a considerable climb. A vehicle with bad tires won’t make it. And it always felt right, the steep ascent, like walking into heaven, not the heaven of the church which I grew up in but the heaven I’ve since adopted, this beautiful land so often forgotten by leadership and policies and corporate interests raking and taking from the people who live it and breathe it and love it to the bone.
I’m in the city, now, and it is an odd sensibility, being caught in concrete and asphalt, brick and glass. But the land is in me. I fantasize about returning to the little cottage on the hill where my great, great grandmother welcomed me when I was young, her voice rasping with decades of cigarette smoke and coffee, her smile wide, her hug warm, the same house where my grandmother Ruthie grew up in the town my great, great grandmother Minnie Cline lived and birthed and worked. And the stories they told. Oh, the stories. Rich and tangy, steeped in the hills. The charming snake. It’s no wonder that the literature I love takes me back to the places I once ran barefoot.
The Women of Appalachian Literary Fiction
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“In ‘Where Moral Authority Begins: Part II,’ I am curious about what truth costs a child and her family in Dorothy Allison’s Appalachian literary fiction, Bastard Out of Carolina. I have obsessed over this novel for years, not only the story but also the language—authentic, textured, defined in place and socio-economics to which I am particularly drawn having grown up as a young girl in northern Appalachia….” “An essential novel.” — The New Yorker Read “Where Moral Authority Begins: Part II: Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison” by Rae Clin e |
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In a world where children can so quickly be forgotten and thrown away, Demon Copperhead is fierce in his survival of foster care, child labor, school, success, addiction, heartbreak, and loss. Demon’s unshakeable tenacity speaks to me personally as a reader and writer, and to my own girlhood growing up in northern Appalachia. Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction |
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My grandmother was named Gertrude, “Gert” for short. She taught me to make cornhusk dolls and chicken and dumplings and fried catfish. I was immediately drawn into the texture and authenticity of The Dollmaker and Gertie Nevels, strong and self-reliant. What a woman will do for her children is endless. “Deeply sincere and moving.” — Chicago Tribune |
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In Storming Heaven, coal, labor, land and corporate interests are inseparable from the lives of the people who inhabit the mountains. The socio-economic stories of West Virginia are vivid and essential to the making of this country. The people of Appalachia are so often forgotten in the national conversation. Giardina reminds us of this. “Brilliant diamond-hard fiction, heartwrenching, tough and tender.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review |
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The environmental cost of mining sits fetid within the families who live in and love West Virginia and Appalachia. Pancake captures a struggle that is ongoing and so often waylaid by national interests and lobbying. “Powerful, sure-footed, and haunting” — New York Times Book Review |
Writing in the Appalachian Literary Tradition
Precious Ugly is a searing debut novel for readers of Bastard Out of Carolina and Demon Copperhead. Set in Reagan-era West Virginia, this work of Appalachian literary fiction follows Clementine, a thirteen-year-old living in a van with her father, a preacher and cult leader. She must decide whether the miracle he promises will save her or destroy her.
“Maybe the most powerful debut of the year.” —Largehearted Boy, Book Notes
Appalachian Literature & Research Resources
Harpers Ferry National Historic Park
The Harpers Ferry Park Association
Algonkian Writer Conferences. “A Conversation Between Rae [Cline] and Michael Neff. 2008.
