Write-Ups

NEW APPALACHIAN BOOKS Write-Ups George Brosi Loletta Clouse. The Homesteads. Knoxville: Tennessee Valley Publishing, 2002. 282 pages. Trade paperback. $12.95. In the 1930s, the Roosevelt Administration created two experiments in relocating displaced coal miners to communities of tiny farms: Cumberland Homesteads near Crossville, Tennessee, and Arthurdale, West Virginia. This novel follows John and Lacey Trotter's move from the coal camp at Wilder, scene of its prequel, into a place at Homesteads as they attempt to adjust to a very different way of life. The author is a librarian in Knoxville, Tennessee, who grew up in the Cumberland Homesteads community. Tina Rae Collins. The Soup Bean War. Pikeville: M.F. Sohn Publications, 2002. 96 pages, illustrated by Luke Roberts. Trade paperback. $7.95. This is a novel set in Eastern Kentucky in the 1950s and based partially on the youthful experiences of the author who now works for Brushy Fork Institute of Berea College. Robert J. Conley. Cherokee. Portland: Graphic Arts Center Publishing, 2002. 127 pages with color photographs on every page by David G. Fitzgerald and an introduction by Chadwick Smith plus an index and bibliography. An oversized hardback in dust jacket. $39.95. A striking coffee-table book, this provides an effective overview of the history and contemporary life of the Cherokee. The last forty pages contain portraits of living Cherokee - including the distinguished artist, Virginia Stroud - almost all from the Western Band located in Oklahoma. Conley is the author of over fifty books, including fiction and non-fiction on the Cherokee. Raymond Daugherty. Blunders and Blessings: 84 Years ofMemories. Mathias, West Virginia: self-published, 2002. 108 pages. Trade paperback. $12.00. "Humor and positive thinking" are the hallmarks of this memoir of a man who lived in Southern and Eastern West Virginia. 94 Julia Nunnally Duncan. Blue Ridge Shadows: Stories. Oak Ridge: Iris Press, 2002. 192 pages. Trade paperback. $15.00. The Asheville Citizen Times says that these fifteen short stories set in Western North Carolina are "natural and unforced and reveal a closeness to poor and working class people." Lee Smith calls them "powerful stories—sometimes dark, always deep," and Kathryn Stripling Byer notes, "they explore the inner lives of their characters, their fears, dreams, obsessions." Duncan received an MFA from Warren Wilson College and teaches at McDowell Community College. Robert Elkins. The Conversion of Big Jim Cane. Charleston: Mountain State Press, 2002. 133 pages. Trade paperback. $12.95. This is a story of the author's grandfather. Robert Elkins is a retired music director and teacher at West Virginia schools in Mingo and Raleigh Counties and a native of Eastern Kentucky. He writes with grace and intelligence and reveals much about mountain life. Suzanne Marshall. "Lord, We're Just Trying to Save Your Water." Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. 343 pages with an index, selected bibliography and photos. Hardback in dust jacket. $55.00. A close examination of contemporary environmental activism in three Southern Appalachian locales is provided in this important book - the Coosa River Watershed and Armuchee area of Northern Georgia and the Terrapin Creek Watershed in Alabama. The author is a history professor at Jacksonville State and an active participant in the campaign to clean up Terrapin Creek. "A useful, timely, and much needed contribution to environmental history, environmental sociology, and social movements studies"—Robert Futrell. James Baker Hall. Praeder's Letters. Louisville: Sarabande Books, 2002. 137 pages. Trade paperback. $12.95. Quite an unusual and remarkable book, this is a novel, told not only in the epistolary form, but also in verse! Yet, it is accessible, interesting and rewarding. Bobbie Ann Mason calls it "crisp, thoughtprovoking , and deeply moving." Its author, Kentucky Poet Laureate James Baker Hall who lives on a Harrison County farm, says "it is a sensual and emotional experience, not an intellectual one. It follows a shape determined by my ear, in league with my sixth sense, affording an experience, not a commentary." The correspondence is between a poet and a Coast Guard radio operator from 1955 to 1985. 95 Earl Hamner and Ralph Giffin. Goodnight John-Boy. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2002. 221 pages with lots of photos, an index, resources and an appendix. Oversized trade...