Booklist and Notes

Booklist and Notes George Brosi Adams, Noah. Far Appalachia: Following the New River North. New York: Delacorte/Random House, 2001. 238 pages with "References and Reading." Hardback in dust jacket. 23.95. "This is just a book about a river. There was no quest involved, only a wish to understand more about this part of the country and my family's past," notes NoahAdams, a native ofAshland, Kentucky, who started his radio career in 1962 and has been a host to All Things Considered on National Public Radio for over eighteen years. In 1997, Adams spent a year traveling down the New River on foot, via canoe and on white-water raft, as well as by bicycle and jeep. He began following the river high in the North Carolina mountains, then traveled through Southwest Virginia and into West Virginia where the New River joins the Gauley to form the Kanawha. Adams' modesty is appropriate. This book is fun and enjoyable, even comfortable, and is at its best when it simply describes Adams' encounters with those who dwell near the river. Bradshaw, Thelma Finster. Howard Finster: The Early Years: A Private Portrait of America's Premier Folk Artist. Birmingham, Alabama (unstated): Cranehill Publishers, 2001. Oversized trade paperback with numerous black-and-white photos. $24.95. Here is a loving, uncritical portrait of one of the most legendary of all folk artists, Howard Finster (1916-2001) of Summerville, Georgia, who died on October 22, 2001. This book tells of his early life on a farm in the shadow of Lookout Mountain in Alabama, his early start as a called-to-preach Baptist minister on and around the mountain on both sides of the Alabama/Georgia line, his longest ministry at Chelsea Church, and his early dabbling in folk art. The result is a book that, as the LibraryJournal remarks, will certainlybe "uplifting reading for general readers and aficionados of folk art." It also gives a soulful feel for life in southernmost Appalachia. The author is the subject's second oldest daughter, a massage therapist who lives on Conyers, Georgia. 84 Duncan, Pamela. Moon Women. New York: Delacorte/Random House, 2001. 326 pages. Hardback in dust jacket. $23.95. This novel takes place during nineteen-year-old Ashley Moon's pregnancy, a time when three fiercely independent Western North Carolina women, used to living alone, come together under one roof. It is "the saga of three generations of . .. women as they adjust to the new stages of their lives—Ashley, unmarried and pregnant; Ruth Ann, no longer living alone but hounded by an ex-husband who wants her back, and Marvelle, coming to the end of her life and holding a secret that could affect them all." -Booklist. "The most sympathetic and well-rounded character is Cassandra, Ruth Ann's obese young sister who dreams of escaping her family, her body and her life as it is." -Publishers Weekly. Although this novel may be a little crude for some, both in what it portrays and how, it does show considerable promise and certainly is more contemporary than most regional literature. Pamela Duncan was born in 1971 in Asheville and grew up near there and in Shelby, North Carolina. She received her MFA working under novelist Lee Smith at North Carolina State. Publishers Weekly notes she "shows promise as a from-the-heart quirky storyteller." Booklist calls this novel "a touching story about what it means to be a family," and Library Journal urges readers to "add newcomer Duncan to your reading list of Southern women writers." Earley, Tony. Somehow Form a Family: Stories That Are Mostly True. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2001. 172 pages. Hardback in dust jacket. $22.95. This is a collection of ten autobiographical "personal essays" told in story form. Seven of the ten are recollections of the author's childhood in Western North Carolina. Earley was born in 1961 in Texas but soon moved with his family, both sides of which had farmed in Western North Carolina for over two hundred years, back to the mountains. He graduated from Warren Wilson College, near Asheville, and got an MFA at the University of Alabama. Earley now teaches creative writing at...