Backcountry
Contemporary Writing in West Virginia
West Virginia University Press
Vandalia Press
9780937058725
$24.95
Paperback
2002-08-19
2002-08-19
This is as closely-knit an anthology as you are ever likely to see. It is as though a large, extended family were drawing on the same store of family stories, jokes, symbols, landscapes, animals, trees, language, and vernacular. How many snakes are in this book? How many foxes, possums? Fossils? And how very many coal mines? But it is not merely local references that unites these writers. There is a larger vision that ties these works together.
"The connection is not so much in mutual influence, though there is some of that, but in each writer’s total immersion in place. Even those writers who no longer live in the state remember the feel, the physical texture, the overwhelming and enfolding vegetal surround of the place." Editor, Irene McKinney
This is as closely-knit an anthology as you are ever likely to see. It is as though a large, extended family were drawing on the same store of family stories, jokes, symbols, landscapes, animals, trees, language, and vernacular. How many snakes are in this book? How many foxes, possums? Fossils? And how very many coal mines? But it is not merely local references that unites these writers. There is a larger vision that ties these works together.
“The connection is not so much in mutual influence, though there is some of that, but in each writer’s total immersion in place. Even those writers who no longer live in the state remember the feel, the physical texture, the overwhelming and enfolding vegetal surround of the place.” Editor, Irene McKinney
6.000in x 9.000in x 0.800in
Weight data not found for this book.
"With collected works, there’s always a temptation to look for the common vein. If such a thread exists, it lies in the impression, the imprint, that West Virginia has shaped. From start to finish (still the best way to read a book), this compilation holds its images; and a careful arrangement of the selections leaves the reader rocking between poetic and concrete high notes. Editor Irene McKinney, whose writing competes with all the rest, has assembled a marvelous vision of West Virginia." Cyns Nelson, The Bloomsbury Review
"…a wonderful collection." Paul Nyden, The Charleston Gazette
"…an exemplary anthology of regional writing." Appalachian Heritage
273 Pages
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