Appalachian Literature

Appalachian Literature
in
Otterbein's Library

Appalachian Fiction
Agee, James. A Death in the Family. PZ4 .A3842 De 1957
This novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. It is partly autobiographical about a happy
Tennessee family and what happens when the father is killed in an auto accident.

Alther, Lisa. Kinflicks. PZ4 .A4737 Ki 1976
The central figure of this novel is Ginny Babcock, a character often compared to
Holden Caulfield. The story is set in Tennessee, but she flees north, and later returns
when her mother is dying.
---. Other Women. PZ4 .A44737 Ot 1985
A doctor's wife undergoes psychotherapy to discover herself.

Arnow, Harriet. The Dollmaker. PZ4.A7668 Do 1972
A classic story of Gertie Nevels’ family set in Detroit during World War II .

Ball, Bo. Appalachian Patterns: Stories by Bo Ball. PZ4.B3455 Ap 1988
Short stories set in the Western part of Virginia during the 1930’s and 1940s.

Berry, Wendell.
---. Hannah Coulter: A Novel. PZ4.B4779 Ha 2004
---. Jayber Crow: A Novel. PZ4.B4779 Ja 2000
---. The Memory of Old Jack. PZ4.B4779 Me 1974
---. A Place on Earth. PZ4.B4779 Pl 1983
---. Remembering: A Novel. PZ4.B4779 Re 1988
---. The Wheel. PS3552.E75 W45 1982
---. The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership.PZ4.B4779 Wi 1986

Caldwell, Wyne. Catalooche. PZ4 .C34275 Ca 2007

Caldwell, a native of North Carolina set this novel in the Cataloochee Valley and covering the period from the Civil War to 1828. Three families and four generations are brought to life in what Kirkus Reviews called "a lovely and gently captivating first novel.

Chappell, Fred. I Am One of You Forever. PZ4.C4267 Ia 1987
A North Carolina author writes of a boy growing up in the 1940s.

Clark, Billy C. Sourwood Tales: Stories. PZ4.C58272 So 1968
A Kentucky native's stories of the "town" of Sourwood near Sourwood Mountain. At least one of the stories is set in Catlettsville in Eastern Kentucky, where Clark was born.

Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain. PZ4 .F843 Co 1997 & (audio book)
PZ4 .F843 Co 1997 An epic tale of a Civil War deserter making his way home to Cold Mountain in North Carolina.

Giardina, Denise. Storming Heaven: A Novel. PZ4.G5374 St 1988
Centered around the Battle of Blair Mountain, 1921, in Annadel, West Virginia. The U.S. Army was called in to break up the 10,000 unemployed, protesting miners.

Godwin, Gail. Evensong. PZ4.G6284 Ev 2000
Takes place in the Smoky Mountains. Margaret Bonner is the first female pastor of an Episcopalian Church on the bring of the millennium.

---. The Finishing School. PZ4.G6284 Fi 1985

A psychological novel about Justin Stokes, a 40-year-old actress with flashbacks of her life and move from Virginia to upstate New York.

---. The Good Husband. PZ4.G6284 Go 1994
A novel about a a college professor, cancer, marriage and loss, all described with wit and compassion at a small college.
---. A Southern Family. PZ4.G6284 So 1987
Set in fictional Mountain City, North Carolina, this novel delves into family reactions and relationships after the suicide of a young father.

House, Silas. Clay's Quilt: A Novel. PZ4 .H6873 Cl 2001

A first novel set in a small Kentucky mining town about a young coal miner, orphaned at four, and the residents of the community who become his family. Appalachian music, religion and culture are warmly depicted.

---. The Coal Tattoo. PZ4 .H6873 Co 2005
House's third novel about the same family; Clay of Clay's Quilt appears as a baby at the end of this novel. Roger Cunningham in The Journal of Appalachian Studies as a novel of character.

Hyman, Mac. No Time for Sergeants. PZ4.H9526 No 1954 c.2

A comic novel about army life and a country "bumpkin" that was turned into a movie with Andy Griffith, and later a stage play and TV show. An adaptation of the novel to a play is also available. PS3515.Y68 N62

Lumpkin, Grace. To Make My Bread. PS3523 .U54 T6 1995
A novel about the industrialization of the Appalachian South, told through a story of the McClure family who left the rural hills to work in the textile mills. Regarded as one of the lost novels of the '30s, it was originally reviewed by the New Republic as the best of books about the 1929 Gastonia, N.C. strike. Lumpkin was born in Georgia and her family later moved to South Carolina and she eventually lived and worked in New York City.

Lyon, George Ella. With a Hammer for My Heart. PZ4.L9663 Wi 1999
A novel set in Kentucky of a girl about to leave for college and an old man who lives in a book-filled bus.

Marshall, Catherine. Christy. PZ4.M3768 Ch 1999
The story of Marshall’s mother who served in a mission in 1912 in Cutter Gap, Ky. at
the age of 19.

Marlette, Doug. The Bridge. PZ4.M3754 Br 2002
The author was a Pulitzer Prize winner cartoonist *Kudzu" from North Carolina. His first novel told a story loosely based on his family's participation in the cotton mill strike of 1934 in which his own grandmother had been bayoneted by the National Guard.

Mason, Bobbie Ann. Feather Crowns. PZ4.M37749 Fe 1993
Imagine the McCaughey family, but set the story in Kentucky at the turn on the
century with the first quintuplets to be born in the United States.
---. In Country.      PZ4.M37749 In 1985
A coming of age tale set in Kentucky, about a 17-year old whose father was killed in Vietnam.
---. Love Life: Stories.    PZ4.M37749 Lo 1989
Stories of the struggles of contemporary working class people.
---. Nancy Culpepper: Stories. PZ4.M37749 Na 2006
One of Mason's characters from a 1980s short story reappears now as the central figure in a series of stories that construct a novel about the difficulty of leaving Appalachia and feeling at home in the North.
---. Shiloh and Other Stories. PZ4.M37749 Sh 1982
A collection of stories about contemporary Kentucky people and changing social conditions.
---. Spence + Lila.    PZ4.M37749 Sp 1988
A married couple in Kentucky as Lila undergoes surgery for Breast Cancer.
---. Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail. PZ4.M37749 Zi 2002
Short stories about middle-aged women faced with caring for children, and parents and still independent and determined.

McCarthy, Cormac. The Border Trilogy - set in the Southwest U.S.:

---. All the Pretty Horses. v. 1.PZ4.M3233 Al 1993

---. The Crossing. v.2. PZ4.M3233 Cr 1994

---. Cities of the Plain. v.3. PZ4.M3233 Ci 1998

---.Child of God. PZ4.M3233 Ch 1993
A disturbed soul who preys on women in East Tennessee.

---. The Orchard Keeper. PZ4.M3233 Or 1982
A novel about the coming of age of a young man in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee, a bootlegger and an aged orchard keeper, whose lives are intertwined.

---. Outer Dark. PZ4.M3233 Ou 1993
A tragic novel of a brother and sister and her search for her baby, born from incest shame and fright. .
---. The Road. PZ4.M3233 Ro 2006
A father and his son are walking towards a mountain path somewhere in the Tennessee - Georgia region. It is already fall and they know they can't survive another winter in the mountains. There is no sun; the end times are here.
---. Suttree. PZ4.M3233 Su 1979
A grim and violent novel set Knoxville, TN in the ‘50s about a loner who has fled his heritage and is drawn into the city’s subculture of the unemployed and hopeless.

McCrumb, Sharyn. Her Ballad Series:
---.The Ballad of Frankie Silver. PZ4.M3678 Ba 1998
---. If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O. PZ4.M3678 If 1991
---. The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter. PZ4.M3678 Ha 1993
---. She Walks These Hills. PZ4.M3678 Sh 1994

---. The Rosewood Casket. PZ4.M3678 Ro 1996
---. The Songcatcher: A Ballad Novel PZ4.M3678 So 2002

---. Ghost Riders. PZ4.M3678 Gh 2003

---. Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories. PZ4 .M132 Fo 1998

A book of short stories.

McCrumb's Elizabeth McPherson Series:
---. Highland Laddie Gone. PZ4.M3678 Hi 1991

---. If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him. PZ4.M3678 If 1996

---. Lovely in Her Bones. PZ4.M3678 Lo 1990 c.2
---. MacPherson's Lament. PZ4.M3678 Ma 1993
---. Missing Susan. PZ4.M3678 Mi 1991

---. Paying the Piper. PZ4.M3678 Pa 1988

---. PMS Outlaws. PZ4.M3678 Pm 2000
---. Sick of Shadows. PZ4.M3678 Si 1989
---. The Windsor Knot. PZ4.M3678 Wi 1992

McWhirter, Millie. Hushed Were the Hills. PZ4 .M1784 Hu

Set in the 1930's and written in the voice of an eight-year-old girl whose widowed mother takes her and her sister along as the mother begins a job as teacher in the hills of Tennessee.

Miller, Jim Wayne. Newfound. PZ4.M54434 Ne 1996

A coming of age novel by a North Carolina born author who was a primary influence in
Appalachian studies and literature.

Morgan, Robert.
Morgan was born in the mountains of North Carolina and his hardworking characters are drawn from his experiences and from family stories handed down from his Welsh ancestors.
-----. The Blue Valley. PZ 4 .M6732 Bl 1989
---. Gap Creek: The Story of a Marriage. PZ4 .M6732 Ga 1999

---. The Mountains Won't Remember Us. PZ4 .M6732 Mo 1992

Norman, Guerney. Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories. PZ4.N6752 Ki 1977
Short stories of a young boy’s growth toward manhood set in Eastern Kentucky
after World War II.

Pancake, Ann. Strange as This Weather Has Been. PZ4 .P3455 St 2007
A first novel, set in West Virginia about the "destrution of land and people in the Appalachian coalfields."

Pancake, Breece D’J. The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake. PS3566 .A559 1983
Stories set in the mountain hollows of West Virginia, the only published work of this author who died at age 27, but wrote intimately about rugged mountain men who were often isolated and sad.

Phillips, Jayne Ann. Shelter. PZ4 .P5583 Sh 1994
A terrifying novel set in a summer camp in West Virginia in the '60s.

Roberts, Elizabeth Madox. Great Meadow. PZ3 .R54145 G4
A tale of early pioneer life in Kentucky and of the Scotch-Irish who pushed beyond the
Appalachians. The New Republic said “her prose…retains the pristine freshness of the Elizabethan song.

Smith, Lee.

---. Cakewalk. PZ4.S64738 Ca 1983 (stories)

---. The Devil's Dream. PZ4.S64738 De 1993
Concerns country musicians.

---. Fancy Strut. PZ4.S64738 Fa 1987
A novel set in Alabama during preparations for Sesquicentennial Week.
---. Fair and Tender Ladies. PZ4.S64738 Fa 1988
A novel, written in the form of letters, that tell the life story of Ivy Rowe.

---. The Last Girls: A Novel. PZ4.S64738 La 2003
College classmates recreating a trip down the Mississippi.

---. Me And My Baby View The Eclipse: Stories PZ4.S64738 Me 1989

Ten stories of people who experience a variety of eclipses.
---. On Agate Hill: A Novel. PZ4 .S64738 On 2007
Historical fiction about a modern-day woman, who finds the diaries of Molly Petre, a Civil-War orphan and others, that reconstruct her life.
---. Oral History. PZ4.S64738 Or 1993
The story of the Cantrell family, folklore and a haunted house.

---. Saving Grace. PZ4.S64738 Sa 1995
Themes of religion and a preacher's daughter.

Still, James. Pattern of a Man and Other Stories. PS3537 .T5377

---. River of Earth. PZ3 .S8566 Ri 1978.
One of the classics of Appalachian literature, told through the eyes of a young boy.
---. Run for the Elbertas. PZ3.S8566 Ru 1980
Stories of the Kentucky mountains during the 1920's.

Stuart, Jesse. His Novels:
---. Come Back to the Farm.    PZ3 .S9306 Cn
---. Daughter of the Legend.    PZ3. S9306 Dau
---. The Good Spirit of Laurel Ridge.    PZ3 .S9306 Go
---. Hie To the Hunters.    PZ3 .S9306 Hi
---. The Land Beyond the River.   PZ3 . S9306 Lan
---. Mr. Gallion's School.    PZ3 .S9306 Mi
---. My Land Has a Voice. PZ3.S9306 My

Wilkinson, Crystal. Blackberries, Blackberries. PZ4.W55269 Bl 2000
Short stories of African American women in rural Kentucky which defy stereotypes.

---. Water Street. PZ4.W55269 Wa 2005

Wilkinson grew up in rural Kentucky, and this book of short stories was listed as a finalist for both the UKs Orange Prize for Fiction as well as the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Fiction. The characters in the thirteen stories, as described by Wilson-Young in the Arkansas Review, speak a universal language - the language of an American people confused about their identity.

Wright, Harold Bell. The Shepherd of the Hills. PZ3 .W9324 1907

Wright was an extremely popular novelist between 1895 and 1926. This novel concerns a disillusioned minister from Chicago who becomes the Shepherd of many people in the Ozarks. It is a romance based on values of hardwork, love and patriotism intermixed with religious values.

Appalachian Poets
Awiakta, Marilou. Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet.
PS3570 .H64237 A64 1995
Poetry by an Appalachian Cherokee raised near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, about the the effects of technology and the atomic bomb on humanity.

Baber, Bob Henry, George Ella Lyon and Gurney Norman. Old Wounds, New Words: Poems from the Appalachian Poetry Project. PS554 .043 1994.
Poems collected during the ’80’s.

Ballard, Sandra L., and Patricia L. Hudson, eds. Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia PS554 .L57 2003

Berry, Wendell. Collected Poems. PS3552 .E75 1985
---. The Country of Marriage. PS3552.E75 C64 1975
--- Given: New Poems. PS3552.E75 G58 2005
---. A Part. PS3552 .E75 P3 - Nature poems about Kentucky.

Carson, Jo. Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet. PS3553 .A7674 S76 1991 c.2
49 poems inspired by listening to conversations Appalachian Tennessee.

Chappell, Fred. First and Last Words. PS3553 .H298 F57 1989
Poetry by a winner of the Bollingen Prize.

Finney, Nikky. Rice. PS3556 .I53 R53 1995
Poetry of a founding member of the Afrolachian Poets and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Kentucky.

Giovanni, Nikki. Black Feeling Black Talk. PS3557 .I55 B6 1970
---. Gemini.    PS35557 .I55 Z5 1976
---. Like a Ripple on a Pond. (CD)   M2198 .G56 1993
---. Racism 101.    PS3557 .I55 Z47 1994
---. Sacred Cows…and Other Edibles. PS3557 .I55 S24 1989
---. Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni. PS3557 .I55 A6 1996
---. Spin a Soft Black Song.   J811 .54 G439s
---. Those Who Ride the Night Winds.   PS3557 .I55 T5 1983
---. Vacation Time: Poems for Children. PS3557 .I55 V3
---. The Women and the Men.   PS3557 .I55 W6 1975

Goode, James B. Up from the Mines. PS3557 .054 U6 1993

Goode's grandfather was a miner who died of Black Lung disease and wrote poems that give voice to Appalachian coal miners. The book also includes 50 photographs by Malcolm J. Wilson.

Miller, Jim Wayne. Dialogue with a Dead Man. PS3563 .I4127 D5
---. The Mountains Have Come Closer. PS3563 .I4127 M64
---. Nostalgia for 70. PS3563 .I4127 N69 1986a
---. Vein of Words. PS3563 .I4127 V4
Poetry by an award winning, North Carolina born poet.

Mitchell, Felicia. Her Words: Diverse Voices in Contemporary Appalachian Women's Poetry. PS554 .H47 2002
Contains poetry as well as criticism for 20 poets.

Powell, Lynn. Old & New Testaments. PS3566 .083255 O43 1995

---. The Zones of Paradise. PS3566 .083255 .Z66 2003

Powell won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 1995.

Smith, Effie Waller Smith. The Collected Works of Effie Waller Smith.
PS3537 .M36 1991
An African American poet (1879-1960) who wrote of the Cumberland Mountains of Virginia and Kentucky.

Stuart, Jesse. "The poet laureate of Kentucky."

---. Album of Destiny. PS3537 .T92516 A7

---. Hold April: New Poems. PS3537 .T92516 H6 1962
---. Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow. PS3537.T92516 M3 1934
---. The World of Jesse Stuart; Selected Poems. PS3537 .T92516 A6 1975

Williams, Jonathan. Blues & Roots, Rue & Bluets: A Garland for the Southern Appalachians. PS3545 .I52966 B64 1985
Poetry that captures the language and spirit of the people he listened to as he hiked
the Appalachian Trail.

Appalachian Literature: Essays

Ballard, Sandra L. and Patricia L. Hudson, eds. Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia. PS554 .L57 2003

A collection of poetry, stories and excerpts from larger works.Biographies and a bibliography is included for each author.

Berry, Wendell.
A Kentucky native and writer of novels, essays and poetry.
---. The Art of the Common-Place: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry.
S441 .B47 2002
---. "A Bad Big Idea." in The Case Against Free Trade: GATT, NAFTA, and the Globalization of Corporate Power. 158-162. HF1746 .C37 1993
---. "Christianity and the Survival of Creation." in Sacred Trusts: Essays on Stewardship and Responsibility. 38-54. GF80 .S23 1993
---. Citizenship Papers. HD1761 .B468 2003
---. Farming: A Hand Book. PS3552 .E75 F3 Copy 2
---. The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural. HD1415 .B47
---. "The Making of a Marginal Farm." in American Lives. 677-685 CT211 .A48 1994
---. Recollected Essays. 1965-1980. E169 .12 .B3962 1981
---. Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays. HN59.2 .B47 1994
---. Standing by Words: Essays. PS3552.E75 S7 2005
---. The Unsettling of America. HD1761 .B47 1996

Dyer, Joyce. Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers.
PS286 .A6 B57 1998
Brief biographies and photos of 35 women authors from the Southern Highlands.

Emblidge, David, ed. The Appalachian Trail Reader. F106 .A63 996Z
Contains trail diaries, historical and personal essays, and poems of the Appalachian Trail.

Fox, Bob. Moving Out, Finding Home: Essays on Identity, Place, Community, and Class.
PS429 .F69 2005

The author became an adopted Applachian farmer in Southeastern Ohio in the 1970's. He writes of his new community, a long way from his native Brooklyn.

Higgs, Robert J., Ambrose N. Manning, and Jim Wayne Miller. Appalachia Inside Out: Conflict and Change. PS554 .A65 1995 v. 1
Short readings on the history, heroes, people, feuds and sense of place in the hills.

---. Culture and Custom. PS554 .A65 1995 v.2
More readings about family, community, religion, folklore, sports, humor, education,
and identity and the future.

Marshall, Ian. Story Line: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail.
PS286 .A6 M37 1998
Ecofeminism, community, Cherokee myths, Annie Dillard and a travel guide wrapped into one.

McKinney, Irene, ed. Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia.
PS558 .W4 B33 2002

Poems and excerpts from stories and memoirs collected from writers connected by their attention to history and place in their writing.

Schenkkan, Robert. The Kentucky Cycle. PS3569 .C4833 K46 1993
Nine short plays by a Pulitzer Prize winning author, set in Eastern Kentucky - three families & 200 years.

Stuart, Jesse.
A Kentucky born author who wrote novels, stories, autobiography and poetry about the Appalachian sense of family, community and language.
---. Dawn of Remembered Spring.   PS3537 .T92516 A6 1972 (stories & poems)
---. God’s Oddling: The Story of Mick Stuart, My Father.    PS3537 .T92516 G6
---. A Jesse Stuart Reader.  PS3537 .T92516 A6 1963
---. Plowshare in Heaven: Stories.   PZ3 .S9306 PL
---. Save Every Lamb.    PS3537 .T92516 S3 (stories)
---. The Thread that Runs So True.   PS3537 .T92516 Z5 1958 (autobiographical novel)
---. The Year of My Rebirth.    RC682 .S8

Wigginton, Eliot, ed. Foxfire 2: Ghost Stories, Spring Wild Plant foods, Spinning and Weaving, Midwifing, Burial Customs, Corn Shuckin's, Wagon Making and More aAfairs of Plain Living. F291.2 .F63

---. The Foxfire Book: Hog Dressing; Log Cabin Building; Mountain Crafts and Foods; Planting by the Signs; Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing; Moonshining; and Other Affairs of Plain Living. S521 .5 /G5 F6 1972
These are just 2 of a longer series of collected writings of many Applachian people.

Questions or comments? Contact Reference Librarian

Books ...

Articles ...