Honeymooners: A Cautionary
Tale
by Chuck Kinder
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001
The author of Snakehunter and The Silver Ghost presents his latest novel, written over a period of 25 years and whittled down from a manuscript of 3,000 pages to a book of 358. Kinder, the first student to write a creative thesis for a master's in English at WVU, is now an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Given the strength of reviews of Honeymooners in the national media and keen interest in the book by Hollywood studios, Kinder's name may soon become known far outside the halls of academe.
Kinder
is no stranger to literary fame. His adventures and misadventures
while in the company of his close friend, the famed short story
writer Raymond Carver, provide much of the material for Honeymooners.
And, while studying at Stanford University after graduating from
WVU, he got to know the writers Wallace Stegner, John Cheever,
and Lawrence Ferhlenghetti.
Although Kinder's new novel and his life include themes that have little to do with West Virginia or Appalachian culture, he does note in Honeymooners that one character holds an M.A. in English literature from WVU. And he writes of a fictional San Francisco commune made of "expatriate, doper West Virginians." Kinder was born in Montgomery, and has family still living in the state. He has said that he left San Francisco for Pittsburgh in order to be closer to home.
Readers of Honeymooners will be drawn into an absorbing, rambling, absurd, hilarious tale of characters whose perpetual misery is tempered by episodes of joyful exuberance. This is not a novel for people who shy away from life experienced at its fullest. Although filled with funny shenanigans and witty dialogue, the book is, indeed, a cautionary tale.
Far Appalachia: Following
the New River North
by Noah Adams
Delacorte Press, 2001
For more than 25 years, Noah Adams has contributed his distinctive voice and perspective to National Public Radio's evening news magazine, All Things Considered. A native of Ashland, Kentucky, Adams had often returned to Appalachia on assignment to interview its inhabitants and report on events. Yet, he yearned to find "the slower way into the country" from which he came. He discovered it on the New River, which flows north 330 miles from its source on Snake Mountain in North Carolina, through Virginia, and eventually into the Gauley River in West Virginia.
In
Far Appalachia: Following the New River North, Adams writes
about the year he spent travelling the New River in search of
a better understanding of this part of the country and of his
own Appalachian heritage. Adams details the travels he took on
foot, by mountain bike, by canoe, and by whitewater raft along
a landscape that is by turns virgin and unspoiled, and scarred
by the ravages of mining and industry. What he finds among the
people he meets is a rich, diverse tapestry of heritages and
lifestyles.
Adams gently unfurls the stories of those who call the banks of the New River home. He walks the old-growth forests with naturalist Todd Williams, whose Native American ancestors were pushed into the mountains by European settlers. He rides the whitewater with Scott Hill, who spends his summers guiding daredevil rafters through the New's world-class rapids. And he takes a white-knuckle flight over West Virginia's New River Gorge with 76-year-old local legend Frank Thomas, who built the Fayette Airport in 1946 and still offers breathtaking five-dollar rides in his single-engine Cessna.
In Far Appalachia, Noah Adams paints a luminous portrait of a land and people as vital and complex as America itself.
Sky of Stone
by Homer Hickam
Delacorte Press, 2001
In his third book of memories, Homer Hickam takes readers back to the melancholy coal-mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia. Hickam's first two books, the best-selling Rocket Boys (retitled October Sky) and The Coalwood Way , set the scene in Coalwood as Homer "Sonny" Hickam and his friends create the Big Creek Missile Agency and Sonny dreams of growing up and working for Dr. Wernher von Braun, the famous rocket scientist, at NASA.
In Sky
of Stone, Sonny and his friends have gone in different directions
after graduating from high school. Sonny has finished his freshman
year, not without his share of academic troubles, at the Virginia
Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, and is instructed by his
mother to go back to Coalwood for the summer of 1961 to keep
his father company. The last place Sonny wants to spend his summer
is in Coalwood; he no longer even considers it home.
Sonny spends the summer trying to solve mysteries that envelop the small town. Among these, his father is being blamed for a miner's death and Sonny is compelled to find out the details. However, his dad doesn't want his help. When Sonny ruins his only chance to escape Coalwood by wrecking the car, he has to come up with money for repairs. This is how he ends up being a coal miner.
Although Sonny sees the coal mines as a wrong turn on his life's path, he becomes an expert track layer and respects—even enjoys—the hard work required there. Sonny pays off his debt, solves the mysteries, and grows into a man that summer. He gains respect from his father and even has a crush on the first female junior engineer to enter Coalwood. The summer is rough, but provides invaluable experience for the young man who goes on to earn a degree in industrial engineering and eventually to work for NASA, although not for his hero von Braun.
In Spite of Obstacles: A History
of the
West Virginia Schools for the
Colored Deaf and Blind, 1926-1955
by Ancella R. Bickley
West Virginia Division of Rehabilitation Services, 2001
Ancella Bickley is a retired vice president of academic affairs at West Virginia State College. In Spite of Obstacles is the story of the schools for deaf and blind African American children and young adults that existed adjacent to the West Virginia State College campus in Institute, a town nine miles west of Charleston.
The
book recounts how these students were taught such skills as weaving,
chair-caning, barbering, and sewing, in addition to studying
arithmetic, reading, writing, geography, and other academic subjects.
It also provides a one-of-a-kind photographic record of the schools'
students, personnel, and activities that gives contemporary readers
a rare glimpse into a unique aspect of West Virginia's past.
For example, there are photos in the book of the school basketball
team and Girl Scout troop—evidence of the wide range of
benefits these students enjoyed with guidance from a dedicated,
caring faculty and staff.
During her retirement, Bickley has spent time researching and writing about the history of blacks in West Virginia. Another recent book of hers is titled Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman (Ohio University Press, 2001). She also has co-edited The History of the West Virginia State Teachers Association and Honoring Our Past: Proceedings of the First Two Conferences on West Virginia's Black History.
Originally from Huntington, Bickley earned a bachelor's degree in English from West Virginia State College, a master's in English from Marshall University, and a doctorate from WVU.
New Books from the WVU Press
Crum: The Novel
by Lee Maynard
Published by the WVU Press under its new trade books imprint,
Vandalia Press, Crum is a wildly funny coming-of-age novel by
native West Virginian Lee Maynard. Since its original publication
in 1988 by Washington Square Press, Crum has become a widely
read modern classic. Beloved by readers as much for its author's
unvarnished fictional account of life in Crum, West Virginia,
as for its many literary merits, the novel is an addictive read
that is not for the squeamish or timid.
West Virginia: A History
by John Alexander Williams
First published in 1976 by W.W. Norton as part of its U.S. Bicentennial
state history series, this work is widely considered one of the
finest books ever written about West Virginia. In his clear,
eminently readable style, Williams conveys a feel for the lives
of common West Virginians, the personalities of the state's memorable
characters, and the powerful influence of the land itself on
its own history. This is a timeless classic presented by the
WVU Press with a new epilogue by the author.
The Smokeless Coal Fields of
West Virginia: A Brief History
by W.P. Tams Jr.
This is a new edition of a book first published in 1963. Its
author, W.P. Tams Jr., was neither a writer nor an historian,
yet his book has become an essential source of information about
an industry that has long been part of West Virginia's economic
and social fabric. Tams, who died in 1977, was a coal baron in
southern West Virginia who wrote about his industry with the
insight of someone for whom coal mining was everything. Nearly
40 years later, his book retains its power.
These books are available at your local bookstore or directly from the WVU Press at www.wvupress.com. Phone (304) 293-8400.