Voice of Glory: The Life and Work of Davis Grubb by Thomas E. Douglass (review)

In this first published book-length study of the West Virginia author Davis Grubb, Thomas E. Douglass relies on thorough primary research to grasp the "texture of [Grubb's] life" and to "compose a coherent story," drawing on letters, diaries, manuscripts, popular reviews, unpublished memoirs, recorded interviews, and Douglass's own correspondence with many of those still living who knew Grubb (p. xiv). Douglass creates an unflinching narrative replete with accounts of Grubb's triumphs and his trials. He also pays close attention to Grubb's invocation of the Ohio River Valley as a geographic touchstone. Voice of Glory: The Life and Work of Davis Grubb will appeal to readers of Grubb's work, and through abundant quotations, it provides secondary access to the source material, much of it not currently available to scholars or the public.

Voice of Glory works less well, however, as scholarly literary biography. While Douglass makes reference to Grubb's "many Appalachian/West Virginia connections that are important in view of establishing a literary history of the region," he does not make a compelling case for Grubb's place as a significant figure in either Appalachian or southern letters (p. xiv). Douglass characterizes Grubb as having been influenced by William Faulkner's interest in expressing the universal through the regional particular, and more than once Douglass invokes the southern trope of the past in the present in reference to Grubb's work. But Douglass provides little in the way of close reading or other in-depth analysis that would support his situating Grubb within the paradigm of a southern writer's obsession with history and its ontological effects on a culture writ large. Indeed, he notes that "Grubb was no Rotarian for a regional literary cause" (p. 3).

Douglass also emphasizes that Grubb had "been putting views of Appalachian life before a national reading audience" long "before the emergence of the Appalachian literary scene," as if to suggest that Grubb ought to be regarded as a forerunner in the region's native literary tradition (p. 2). While in the opening pages Douglass briefly mentions Appalachian authors who were lauded contemporaries of Grubb—including Harriette Simpson Arnow, James Still, Wilma Dykeman, and Mary Lee Settle (interestingly, he does not mention Jesse Stuart, a fellow river rat from Kentucky)—he does little specific analysis from that point on that would position Grubb among these now-canonical Appalachian authors. Douglass also does not explore how Grubb's work might have resonated during the "Appalachian Literary Renaissance" that "began to gather momentum" in the years just before Grubb's death (p. 3). Indeed, Douglass classifies Grubb as more nearly an abstract humanist who "feared the marginalization of the individual, not exclusively an Appalachian individual," and who "was more interested in fiction that inspired the common man to embrace his own soul" (p. 3). While it might be interesting to ruminate on the implications of Grubb's having followed an alternate trajectory to the more conventional writer's path as artist and influencer within that specific literary history, Douglass does little in pursuit of that question here. Instead, he recites the numerous biographical and geographic references to West Virginia in Grubb's work as evidence of his standing as an Appalachian writer.

Overall, the book has a bit of a split personality. On the one hand, Douglass admirably strives to let Grubb's life and letters tell their own story. As such, the book will be a valuable resource for those who are already fans of Grubb and want to learn more details about the chronology of his personal life and career. On the other hand, Douglass's seeming intention to place Grubb within southern and Appalachian literary traditions ultimately does not bear out in the course of his treatment. For this reason, the book is of limited use as a volume of literary history and criticism...