The Political Power and Pitfalls of Identity and Cultural Creation: A Reading of Seeking Home

REVIEW-ESSAY THERESA L. BURRISS Radford University The Political Power and Pitfalls of Identity and Cultural Creation: A Reading of Seeking Home WHEN I BEGAN READING SEEKING HOME: MARGINALIZATION AND Representation in Appalachian Literature and Song, I immediately found myself on alert for an overly romanticized view of the region. Coeditor Leslie Harper Worthington’s introduction, “Finding Home in Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies,” does include sentimental memories of Worthington’s grandmother and grandfather, who raised her in several locales outside of Appalachia, although her grandparents hailed from Greenup County, Kentucky, located in the region. Crediting Smith’s protagonist, Ivy Rowe, with serving as catalyst for those memories, Worthington catalogs characteristics exhibited by her grandparents that mirror many of Loyal Jones’s “Appalachian Values” (“Individualism, Self-Reliance, and Pride” [509]), characteristics that embarrassed Worthington as a burgeoning teenager. When recounting her frustration with her grandmother for not allowing her to ride to school with the family across the street, instead of on the “smelly, noisy, stupid old school bus,” she confesses, “I didn’t know what it meant to be beholden and why if we couldn’t return the favor, I couldn’t accept their offer” (3). Worthington presents an almost verbatim value asserted by Jones: “The pride of the mountaineer is mostly a feeling of not wanting to be beholden to other people” (510). Worthington continues to catalog the ways Ivy resonates with her, asserting, “I felt part of something in a way I’m not sure I had ever felt before. I was finding an identity” (4). Although I rail against the overly romantic in most contexts, who am I to deny the power of a fictional character in transforming a reader? Additionally, Worthington presents more than her own story, a story she bravely and honestly shares with us. She includes reputable Appalachian scholars who problematize the notions of identity and region, who debunk monolithic representations of Appalachia. At the 122 Theresa L. Burriss start Worthington distinguishes between claiming and seeking home, thereby establishing both a theoretical and a physical context for the collection. She asserts that the collection’s goal is “to function as a kaleidoscope of sorts, illuminating different modes of belonging and representation, rendering audible the polyvocality of multiple Appalachian realities, of Appalachia as home” (8). Indeed, the collection does succeed, although some chapters achieve the desired goal better than others— almost every chapter needed an acute critical eye to correct grammar, spelling, and other surface errors. While several of the chapters address topics widely known not only in Appalachian but also in southern studies through the lens of “seeking home,” others highlight lesser known authors and issues that expand the region’s repertoire. Some chapters focus on literature that brings to bear contemporary problems ravaging the region, such as methamphetamine production and addiction. Kimberly M. Jew’s chapter on the Civil War journals of Alexander Sterrett Paxton is an example of recognizing the lesser known, for she engaged in primary research to chronicle this soldier’s attempts to make sense of his war experience. Establishing the direction of the chapter, Jew proposes, “A home offers the empowered subject an outward and distinct manifestation of his or her identity, and fostersanemotionalrelationshiptoone’sroots”(35).Throughhisjournal writing, Paxton sought a strong sense of self and agency in a time when he served as mere expendable foot soldier. He yearns to create a home in the army camp even while longing for his actual home of Rockbridge County, Virginia. Jew notes that to Paxton, “the heart of his army home is not rooted in physical space or location. His army home is composed of the people who live there and the energy and routine they create when living together” (42). In one particular month, Paxton records his dreams that further testify to his need to assert his subjectivity in an othering,objectifyingenvironment.BothPaxton’sarmyandRockbridge County homes merge in one revealing dream. Thus, Jew argues that “home proves a combination of both matter and imagination, with its greatest legacy being an intangible feeling of belonging—present, past, or future tense” (51). Like Jew’s chapter, James A. Owen’s “‘Come Holy Spirit:’ The Holy Ghost in the...