Appalachian Gateway: An Anthology of Contemporary Stories and Poetry.

Brown, Joyce Compton

Appalachian Gateway: An Anthology of Contemporary Stones and Poetry. Ed. George Brosi, Kate Egerton, Samantha Cole, and Morgan Cottrell. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013. 353 pp. $29.95.

IN THIS COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY APPALACHIAN STORIES AND POETRY the editors have chosen to focus on the realities of modern Appalachian life rather than on the stereotypes of the past and the softer pastel accounts that often blur the grimmer aspects of life. In attempting to assure the veracity and relevance of their selections, editors George Brosi and Kate Egerton elicited the help of student editors Samantha Cole and Morgan Cottrell. The collection is enriched by Brosi's fine essay on the history of Appalachian literature, biographies and selected bibliographies for each of the twenty-five authors included, and an afterword by Egerton and Cottrell offering suggestions and directions for using the collection in varied courses involving Appalachian Studies. The editors also recommend the work for general readers interested in contemporary Appalachia and its literature.

The book is organized to correspond with the categories of the massive Encyclopedia of Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press, 2006) and the selected stories and poems are aimed toward this purpose rather than toward the aesthetically strongest or best known of the authors' works. No novels are included, though many are mentioned in the abundant supporting materials prepared by the editors.

To reinforce the emphasis on Appalachia itself rather than on an all-inclusive overview of Appalachian contemporary literature, Brosi says,

   We view this book as a gateway to Appalachian literature.... The
   editors do not mean in any way to imply that these are the
   twenty-five best writers working today or that our selections
   represent their finest work. Rather, we have made very difficult
   decisions about inclusion based on achieving a variety of balances.
   (xv)

Nevertheless, some of the most renowned authors in Appalachian literature are included in the collection. Newer names like Mark Powell and Chris Holbrook appear alongside such literary legends as Lee Smith, Fred Chappell, and Charles Wright. Who better to represent the landscapes of Appalachia than Lisa Alther, Fred Chappell, Nikki Giovanni, and Robert Morgan? Consider Chappell's observation in his poem "The Gentrifiers Are in Pursuit": "now come the real estaters / and their minion politicos and / it is no more Haint Holler / no more Hellfire Creek but Sweetwater Brook / in Castle Glen yonder in 'Sunny' Harbison" (15).

Robert Conley's "Plastic Indian" and Ann Pancake's "Redneck Boys" begin the section on people of Appalachia--people like Meredith Sue Willis's Elvissa, a woman who chooses to live her life as a New York Jewish wife; Powell's Walt Berger, a man whose life is shattered by his experience in Iraq; and Frank X Walker's sister lost to crack cocaine. This section about the people attempts to represent their variety in its large selection of poems and stories. Chris Offutt's "Out of the Woods" offers an Appalachian Gothic element to the section on Appalachian work and economy, while Barbara Kingsolver's "Homeland" offers a tragic portrait of an old woman's erasure emblematic of America's treatment of the Cherokee people. Ron Rash and Charles Wright add to the portrayals of pain and loss and the rough life in Appalachia.

Poems and stories enrich the cultural traditions section of the text by offering insight into the complexity of rough lives. I will always remember Pinckney Benedict's Pig Helmet clinging to the vortex of the Wall of Life, stretching his unclean hand towards salvation. Silas House's portrayal of women seeking salvation in a coal-town life is hard reality, while Sharyn McCrumb shares through magic realism a vision of another cultural loss--that of the mountain dirt track racer.

The role of institutions in Appalachian life is made vivid in poems such as Jeff Daniel Marion's gentle "Song for Wood's Barbeque Shack in McKenzie, Tennessee" and Kathryn Stripling Byer's "Precious Little," a damning indictment of the masculine assumption of dominance in the world of the literary elite. Several stories, such as Elizabeth Cox's "The Last Fourth Grade," illustrate the fragile nature of institutions, while Holbrook and Jayne Ann Phillips offer tales which might well be deemed "Appalachian noir."

This mix of poetry and stories enriches the reader's experience and encourages reaching toward greater understanding through the many resources offered (and/or reaching within the self to write in response). Particularly evident is the move toward revealing a darker, grittier Appalachia, whether we label it noir, grit lit, stories of the dirty Appalachia, or whatever other terms may emerge. The gateway offered by this collection suggests a downward spiral, more a vision of collapse than of rebuilding: it's a naturalistic vision of humankind as victim, sometimes of despair. This is particularly apparent in the choice of short stories, as they open up a world which needs to be seen, while at the same time offering readers the opportunity to ponder the question of Appalachian noir offered by a new generation of Appalachian writers, represented most clearly today by the brilliant David Joy, whose work is outside the bounds of this collection.

Perhaps we must heed these voices to declare it isn't so, to establish our line of defense against the vortex, against the permeation of hazy drug days and nights, against the flinging back to the mountains the bodies of our war-torn men with no balm offered for their healing. This is a text for readers already steeped in some of the classic Appalachian writers who led to the opening up of subjects beyond the frivolous: James Still, Wilma Dykeman, Thomas Wolfe, Harriet Arnow--the list could go on. These Appalachian writers built a foundation of powerful works which students in today's classes need to understand as they move into studying the perspectives of our strong contemporary voices.

We should and do rejoice at nearing the point where fewer voices are silent in Appalachia. Perhaps the strongest now are those of masculine sorrows and defeat; yet House gives us Liz and Charma and the other women who dance through his fiction with courage and joy. Byer reminds us of Eudora Welty's Mississippi quiet world and magnificent words, of the truth that can be found while the Appalachian poet sits with "nothing much going on, no bombs / no fireworks, just late summer afternoon / and the dogs asleep under the oak tree" (258).

Joyce Compton Brown

Gardner-Webb University, Emerita