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Crapalachia: A Biography Of A Place (2013)

by Scott McClanahan(Favorite Author)

4.11 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1937512037 (ISBN13: 9781937512033)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Two Dollar Radio

review 1: Wow, this was an amazing book. I don't know how to describe it. It's certainly not an Appalachian Minstrel Show, as the author declares. It goes deeply into the mountain life in, I think, Fayette County. This is a way of life that I never experienced, despite my 25 years there, because outsiders just don't get invited to these places. There are moments of surrealistic poetry. There are glimpses of wisdom that remind me of Vonnegut's, squarely in the school of black humor (which may be an archaic phrase now). It tells the story of McClanahan's family, especially his grandmother and his Uncle Nathan, who had cerebral palsy. Nathan is one of the most fully realized disabled characters I've ever read about in a novel. It's called "a biography of a place," and has bits... more of history mixed in with the fiction (the things that haunt southern West Virginians: Buffalo Creek, Hawk's Nest, Sago). It's a novel, but the truth-teller in the author can't stand leaving it at that and he corrects all the made up parts at the end. It's about love, growing up, and ghosts. And kindness and being ignorant about how to live and being real, as well, and being very close to despair because life is like that. Crapalachia is like that. This is a stunning novel. I like the title, too--perfect.
review 2: Another excellent novel about his people in the hollers of West Virginia; beautiful, rounded characters that one wants to know and live with for a time. I was even sad when I couldn't about Grandma Ruby, Uncle Nathan with cerebral palsy, Bill, Lee, and Naked Joe. This is a richly texture novel, a style that chimes crystal clear, and with a pleadings tone that pleads, "Listen, please listen, I have so much to tell you. Perhaps you will find some wisdom in it." less

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