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A Book Review
Reviewed by Barry D. Gilfry © 2004
Wild Child Publishing.com © 2004
Wind Publications 2003
ISBN: 1-893239-21-7
"The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement."
-John Steinbeck in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1962
Bearskin to Holly Fork: Stories From Appalachia is a collection of gritty stories populated by tough people, and author Bob Sloan certainly exposes the faults and failures of his characters, as well as sharing with us their merits and accomplishments. Murderers, bootleggers, pot-growers, crippled war veterans, ex-cons and drunks rub elbows with sheriffs, waitresses, clerks, farmers, carpenters and the like. Sometimes it is difficult to tell who is who, as often they are one and the same.
This meticulously edited medley is not only an enjoyable read but should be considered a textbook for writers. Throughout, the author has sprinkled his wonderful imagery in carefully worded and structured sentences and paragraphs.
In Finding the Gate, the shortest story in this anthology, a woman who has lived all of her life in Appalachia says,
"Once, at church, I heard a visiting preacher compare the high flint ridges rising all around us to the caring, cradling arms of Jesus. It was a pretty image, but to me these Kentucky mountains seemed more a fence so high we could neither cross nor see beyond it."
However, she finds her way out through her son Stevie. Even at the age of six, he is not limited by the barrier that he will soon cross. After he was missing all one afternoon, his mother says,
"...I took my son onto the porch and rocked him a long time in the summer darkness. By and by, Stevie began to tell me what he'd seen.
"He found silver minnows in a dark creek, followed the water's flow to distant fields. Crouched in weeds, he saw his father's sweaty labor in mid-day heat, laughed at curses Steven flung at our mule. Fat groundhogs crept from hillside crevices, and their babies came out to play, ignoring Stevie as though he belonged in that wild place."
From The Procedure: "Tommy's grown used to the way the girl placates her over-Jesused grandmother. Each morning Marcie leaves the old woman's house wearing ankle-length dresses and the pinned hair of a Pentecostal maiden."
From A Ride Across Open Water: "Raising his eyes a few degrees, Paul watched the island recede, winking neon pooled like a melted rainbow by the boardwalk."
The author also treats us to some plot twists and fantastic ideas:
In Fire and Stella, we meet Joe Caudill. Joe's having a bad day... or let's say a series of bad days. As one-armed Joe watches while his barn burns, Joe's neighbor Randall wants to ask, "Was screwing Stella Oakley half a dozen time worth roofing nails in your driveway, sugar in your tractor's gas tank, and a burnt barn?" Of course, Randall suspects Stella's husband, just out of jail, as does Joe. Yet perhaps the answer lies much closer to home.
The story Troops is the closest to science fiction that you will find in this compendium. Bob Sloan posits, What if the people you killed in war came back to haunt you--not to hurt you or to scare you, but just to remind you that war, after all, means killing? Some ex-servicemen are able to live with these ghosts from their past; others shrink from fear. For yet others, in particular two senators and a governor who had each molded his political career on his war record, a scandal arises when it is seen that the "war record" was a pack of lies.
Of the 15 tales, I had several favorites: Fire and Stella, Troops, The Obligation; but more than any other, A Ride Across Open Water shines from the setting of this book like a literary gem. It is, in fact, one of the finest short stories I have read in years. A Ride Across Open Water should be required reading for anyone wanting to learn how to write short stories. I read this story again and again, but not because the tale itself is a happy one. Au contraire. It is a very sad account of two people who suffer a great loss; yet each reading revealed more of the characters and the circumstances. The story is a wonderful blend of linguistic precision and lyrical beauty.
Open Water is basically about a husband on the trail of his runaway wife. But we learn so much more about both characters as we read. The author begins the tale with action and sounds:
"Ice rattled as Paul Fitch leaned over the cab of his pickup truck, fumbling in the cooler for another beer. Snapping the can open, he dried his fingers on the knee of his work pants and glanced into the rearview mirror. An arcing wake marked the ferry's progress across Colley Bay, light from Burnham's Island chopped into dancing shards of color."
"At five o'clock Paul had walked through empty silence filling his house like a bad smell.
"Twice in the week before she left, he came home to find his wife sleeping on the sofa, an empty glass that smelled of bourbon on the floor. Both times a pink and blue baby book, purchased the afternoon a doctor confirmed Bea's pregnancy, was on her lap. Paul's memory still held whole paragraphs from pamphlets and articles about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
"At the stern, Paul leaned against the rail and stared into the boil and churn of the vessel's twin screws, wind ruffling his hair.
"Paul never saw the ferry's wake without fantasizing a leap into it... After they left their daughter in a cemetery outside Baton Rouge, Paul rode the ferry for hours, every day for a week. He spent those days poised over the wake."
He knew that if he jumped, Bea would be left all alone. Paul recalls how, "The brief period of wakefulness after he and Bea lay down together was Paul's favorite moment of any day. Lying against Bea's warmth was sanctuary... More than anything in the world, Paul wanted to climb into bed with his wife, feel familiar curves against his belly as he drifted off to sleep."
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In his own words (taken from our July interview with Bob Sloan):
"My wife gave me the phrase 'blue collar fiction.' It suits me better than any other label. I write stories about Appalachian working class people, the "working poor," because they're the people who raised me, the people I live with, the people who matter to me.
"I grew up in a time and place with a very strong story-telling tradition, where people who could tell a good story were much admired. I wanted to be like them. Learning to read revealed a direct connection between what happened on front porches and what was between the covers of books. Nights on the porch made me want to be a storyteller; books made me want to put the stories in a format that would last beyond evening's end."
The 15 tales in Bearskin to Holly Fork: Stories From Appalachia may be centered around life in Appalachia, but the truths therein are universal.
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