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Booklist and Notes George Brosi Camhi, Rebecca Cale. Deepwater Mountain. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company, 2001. 372 pages. Trade paperback. This is an historical novel of the first one hundred years of West Virginia statehood, 1861-1961, set in Southern West Virginia. It includes actual historical characters, such as Mother Jones and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as fictional characters. The author is a Library Media Specialist near Buffalo, New York. She is a native of Glen Ferris, West Virginia. Chamberlain, Diane. The Courage Tree: A Novel. Don Mills, Ontario: Mira Books, 2001. 376 pages. Hardback in dust jacket. $22.95. Diane Chamberlain was born in New Jersey in 1950 and received her MSW from San Diego State in 1978. After working as a clinical social worker, she began her current career as a novelist. The recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times, she has written eleven novels and now lives in Northern Virginia. In this, her latest, Sophie, an eight-year-old suffering from renal failure, gets lost in the West Virginia woods after a car wreck. Seeking desperately to find Sophie are her mother and her mother's boyfriend, her father and her father's girlfriend, and her grandparents, all in conflict with each other on important issues. She stumbles onto a cabin where an aging film star, Zoe, is awaiting the arrival of her daughter Marti, who hasjust escaped from jail. "Despite some cramped characterizations and too many narrative trails converging at once, this page turner will please those who like their stories with as many twists and turns as a mountain road." - Publishers Weekly. "Well-drawn characters and an unexpected and riveting plot make this a memorable thriller."—Booklist. Cook, Samuel R. Monacans and Miners: Native American and Coal Mining Communities in Appalachia. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. 344 pages with nine photographs, four maps and an index. Hardback in dust jacket. $65.00. Trade paperback. $29.95. Based on a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Arizona, this study compares two Appalachian communities. One is made up of Monacan Indians inAmherst County, Virginia, and the other is comprised of coal miners in Wyoming County, West Virginia. "In sum," the author concludes, "from a political economy perspective, the present situation 76 confronting the Monacans appears more promising than that facing the residents ofWyoming County. Nevertheless, the above comparison of variables illustrates that at specific points in time and space both communities qualified as internal colonies if measured by conventional standards." The conclusion raises ten important questions about how these colonial relationships have worked in the two communities over the years. This is an important study that has wide-ranging implications and creates important precedents. Samuel R. Cook (b. 1965) currently teaches part-time at Virginia Tech. Cuthbert, John A. Early Art and Artists in West Virginia. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2000. 301 pages with 135 color prints of paintings, a biographical directory, a bibliography and an index. Oversized hardback in dust jacket. $85.00. What a fabulous way to introduce an important topic that has been all but ignored in regional books: Appalachian visual artists. This book, which focuses on the time period from 1790-1914, is exquisitely attractive, fascinating, meticulously researched and truly substantive. The biographical directory includes nearly one thousand artists! John Cuthbert was born, raised and educated in Massachusetts but got his Ph.D. at West Virginia University in 1980. Since 1994 he has been Director of Art Collections and head of Special Collections at the West Virginia University Library. Depta, Victor. Preparing a Room. Martin, Tennessee: Blair Mountain Press, 2001. 87 pages. Trade paperback. $11.95. Victor Depta (b. 1939) grew up on Buffalo Creek in West Virginia, received his Ph.D. in English from Ohio University and has taught for most of his career at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He writes prolifically in many genres. This book consists of a series of poems that tell the life story of a persona who grows up in the mountains and becomes a professor. It centers on the persona's connection to a reclusive male neighbor and his female housekeeper who serve as a kind of anchor...

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