Appalachian Echoes Fiction

Considered by many scholars to be the first novel to realistically depict the Appalachian region and its people, Anne Armstrong's This Day and Time (1930) follows a resilient young woman named Ivy, deserted by her husband and raising a young son in the mountains after having tried working factory jobs in town. With lyrical descriptions of the landscape and careful, if archaic, use of dialect, Armstrong explores both timeless and contemporaneous themes, including the impact of industrialization, the deep connection between mountaineers and their land, the roles and victimization of women, and the cycle of life through the changing seasons. Agrarian critic Donald Davidson called it "as true a novel of the mountains as has been written." For this new edition of Armstrong's work, editor Linda Behrend has written a critical introduction that discusses these literary themes and other components of the text,including biographical information, an analysis of Armstrong's style and technique, and connections to other literary works of the time. An extensive bibliography includes archival and primary sources, book reviews from This Day and Time's original appearance in 1930, reviews of stage adaptations of the book, and sources that shed light on its unique linguistic style. Almost a century after This Day and Time was first published, this edition offers both an engaging narrative and an insightful study for a new generation of readers.

"In The Road John Ehle's skill as a storyteller brings an early episode of road building in the North Carolina mountains to rich and vivid life. Hardship and humor, suffering and dreams are the balance for survival in a landscape that makes harsh demands on its intruders. Ehle lets us experience this place, people, and past in a fully realized novel."-Wilma Dykeman "The Road is a strong novel by one of our most distinguished authors. Muscular, vivid, and pungent, it is broad in historical scope and profound in its human sympathies. We welcome its return with warm pleasure."-Fred Chappell Originally published in 1967, The Road is epic historical fiction at its best. At the novel's center is Weatherby Wright, a railroad builder who launches an ambitious plan to link the highlands of western North Carolina with the East. As a native of the region, Wright knows what his railway will mean to the impoverished settlers. But to accomplish his grand undertaking he must conquer Sow Mountain, "a massive monolith of earth, rock, vegetation and water, an elaborate series of ridges which built on one another to the top." Wright's struggle to construct the railroad-which requires tall trestles crossing deep ravines and seven tunnels blasted through shale and granite-proves to be much more than an engineering challenge. There is opposition from a child evangelist, who preaches that the railroad is the work of the devil, and there is a serious lack of funds, which forces Wright to use convict labor. How Wright confronts these challenges and how the mountain people respond to the changes the railroad brings to their lives make for powerfully compelling reading. The Author: A native of Asheville, North Carolina, John Ehle has written seventeen novels and works of nonfiction. His books include The Land Breakers, The Journey of August King, The Winter People, and Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. Among the honors he has received are the Lillian Smith Prize and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Award.