Description
Book SynopsisAn American Vein is an anthology of literary criticism of Appalachian novelists, poets, and playwrights. The book reprises critical writing of influential authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Cratis Williams, and Jim Wayne Miller. It introduces new writing by Rodger Cunningham, Elizabeth Engelhardt, and others.
Trade Review“An American Vein succeeds where many southern scholarly studies fail, by considering the work of [Lee] Smith, [Fred] Chappell, and a host of other writers, living and dead, as embodiments of the mountain cultures that produced them. . . . The book’s content is highly varied, rich, and sturdy.” * The Sewanee Review *
“It’s not often that a collection of literary criticism this solid, comprehensive, and comprehensible appears.” * Journal of Appalachian Studies *
“From Cratis Williams’s classic study The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction to contemporary scholarship on ecocriticism, this impressive collection of essays provides an important, though too long neglected, part of American literary history. This book effectively gives Appalachian literature the serious attention it deserves.”
“The overall thrust of the anthology is to present Appalachian literature afresh, and to point out its centrality to American literature as a whole while establishing it as a legitimate regional literature. The editors acknowledge that no single work can accomplish all this, but An American Vein is a strong beginning and an excellent introduction to an underappreciated vein of literature.” * Rocky Mountain Review *
Table of Contents* Preface * Introduction * 1: New Directions: Folk or Hillbilly? Cratis D. Williams * 2: Appalachian Literature at Home in This World Jim Wayne Miller * 3: Jesse Stuart and James Still: Mountain Regionalists Dayton Kohler * 4: The Changing Poetic Canon: The Case of Jesse Stuart and Ezra Pound Charles H. Daughaday * 5: James Still's Poetry: "The Journey a Worldly Wonder" Jeff Daniel Marion * 6: On Harriette Arnow's The Dollmaker Joyce Carol Oates * 7: The Christian and the Classic in The Dollmaker Barbara Hill Rigney * 8: Social Criticism in the Works of Wilma Dykeman Oliver King Jones III * 9: Casting a Long Shadow: The Tall Woman Patricia Gantt * 10: O Beulah Land: The "Yaller Vision" of Jeremiah Catlett Jane Gentry Vance * 11: The Beulah/Canona Connection: Mary Lee Settle's Autobiographies Nancy Carol Joyner * 12: The Appalachian Homeplace as Oneiric House in Jim Wayne Miller's The Mountains Have Come Closer Don Johnson * 13: The Mechanical Metaphor: Machine and Tool Images in The Mountains Have Come Closer Ricky Cox * 14: Kin and Kindness in Gurney Norman's Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories Danny L. Miller * 15: "The Primal Ground of Life": The Integration of Traditional and Countercultural Values in the Work of Gurney Norman Timothy J. Dunn * 16: John Ehle and Appalachian Fiction Leslie Banner * 17: The Power of Language in Lee Smith's Oral History Corinne Dale * 18: A New, Authoritative Voice: Fair and Tender Ladies Dorothy Combs Hill * 19: "Where's Love?": The Overheard Quest in the Stories of Jo Carson Robert J. Higgs * 20: Family Journeys in Jo Carson's Daytrips Anita J. Turpin * 21: Points of Kinship: Community and Allusion in Fred Chappell's Midquest John Lang * 22: Fred Chappell's Urn of Memory: I Am One of You Forever Hilbert Campbell * 23: Coming Out from Under Calvinism: Religious Motifs in Robert Morgan's Poetry John Lang * 24: Robert Morgan's Mountain Voice and Lucid Prose Cecelia Conway * 25. Class and Identity in Denise Giardina's Storming Heaven Terry Easton * 26: Cormac McCarthy: Restless Seekers John G. Cawelti * 27. Claiming a Literary Space: The Affrilachian Poets Theresa L. Burriss * 28: Nature-Loving Souls and Appalachian Mountains: The Promise of Feminist Ecocriticism Elizabeth Engelhardt * 29: The Wolves of Egypt: John Crowley's Appalachians Rodger Cunningham * Supplemental Notes on Authors * Contributors * Index
