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149 Nine Fred Chappell’s I Am One of You Forever as a Subject for Literary Analysis and an Alternative Image of Mid-Twentieth-Century Appalachia ricky l. cox S e t i n W e s t e r n N o r t h C a r o l i n a a r o u n d 1 9 4 0 , Fred Chappell’s I Am One of You Forever (1985)1 is the first in a series of four short novels centered on the immediate and extended family of Jess Kirkman, the book’s narrator and central character. Despite occasional reminders that the story is being told by a grown-up Jess in early middle age, the point of view is primarily that of Jess as an observant, thoughtful boy between ten and twelve years old, who is equally at ease hoeing corn and reading prose translations of Homer. Jess narrates the three succeeding novels as well, which carry the reader through the deaths of both parents. Although at times limited to relating stories in which he plays no part, he functions throughout the four books as the keeper and interpreter of this fictional family history. In addition to its virtues as a depiction of the Appalachian region, I Am One of You Forever is a rich and rewarding novel for thesis-driven literary analysis by college-level writers. Thanks to an unusual structure and an array of easily perceived and delineated themes,a book that is complex enough to challenge the most perceptive graduate student is also easily divided into coherent pieces, in sufficient size, shape, and variety to be accessible and appealing to the least confident of college freshman writers. It can be argued, for example, that the book is actually a collection of short stories and not a novel at all, 150 Ricky L. Cox despite the front cover statement to that effect. It is undeniably a story of coming-of-age and maturation, but just who is maturing, young Jess or the men with whom he spends most of his time, is a matter of opinion. Thanks to a string of elaborate practical jokes and regular bits of comic dialogue, I Am One is at times hilarious, but it is also a deeply sad story, due not only to the death of a beloved central character, but also to the overtly empty or simply unexplained lives of a string of visiting relatives. Even the pronoun references in the title, which appears to be Jess’s answer to a question asked of him in the last sentence of the book, may be debated by readers. I Am One of You Forever is both simple and complex in its use of plot and in its development of characters, both adolescent and adult in its outlook and appeal, and both conventional and experimental in its themes and structure. The second portion of this essay contends that I Am One of You Forever offers to teachers and readers an image of mid-twentieth-century Appalachian life and people that may serve as complement or counterpoint to the darker, better-known pictures drawn by writers like James Still in River of Earth ([1940] 1996), set in Eastern Kentucky around 1930; and Harriette Arnow in The Dollmaker ([1954] 2009), which takes place in Eastern Kentucky and Detroit during World War II. Each of the ten positive attributes described in Loyal Jones’s ([1975] 1996) post–War on Poverty essay “Appalachian Values ” may be identified within the characters and relationships of I Am One, albeit in forms broadened or diluted, depending upon one’s perspective, by formal education. At the same time, Chappell offers an illuminating contrast to novels like the two named above, which depict families at the mercy of an industrial-based economic system they can neither control nor comprehend, and divided within themselves about whether to cling to the old ways or embrace the new. Apart from the immediate threat of World War II, the future is open-ended for Chappell’s surprisingly modern Kirkman family, whose understanding of the encroaching outside world and chances of success within it are enhanced by formal education (both parents are college graduates) and brightened by economic resources that are,while modest by today’s standards, considerable compared to those of the Baldridge family in River of Earth and the Nevels family in The Dollmaker. Writing About I Am One of You Forever For lack of a better organizing principle...

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