Inhabiting Contemporary Southern and Appalachian Literature: Region and Place in the Twenty-First Century

214 Pages·2012·0.93 MB·English

by  Casey Clabough

Inhabiting Contemporary Southern and Appalachian Literature
University Press of Florida
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
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Inhabiting Contemporary
Southern and Appalachian
Literature
Region and Place in the Twenty-First Century
Casey Clabough
University Press of Florida
Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Copyright 2012 by Casey Clabough
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America. This book is printed on Glatfelter Natures Book,
a paper certified under the standards of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). It is a
recycled stock that contains 30 percent post-consumer waste and is acid-free.
This book may be available in an electronic edition.
17 16 15 14 13 12 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clabough, Casey Howard, 1974-
Inhabiting contemporary Southern and Appalachian literature : region and place in the
twenty-first century / Casey Clabough.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-4173-5 (alk. paper)
1. American literature—Southern States—History and criticism. 2. American literature—
Appalachian Region—History and criticism. I. Title.
PS261.C49 2012
810.9'975—dc23
2012009810
University Press of Florida
15 Northwest 15th Street
Gainesville, FL 32611-2079
http://www.upf.com
For the places
There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed.
John Lennon
No one lives in the world in general.
Clifford Geertz
Most of the important things about the place of place in fiction have been said
before and said by my betters. And so it is probably outrageous, bad form all
around, to write about place again, to try to recapitulate the persuasive argu-
ments so ably advanced that they are by now our unspoken assumptions, mat-
ters of faith and belief. Yet . . .
George Garrett
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Part I. Getting (Back) There: An Introduction and a Case Study
Why Read for Place? An Introduction 3
1. “To Blend in the Place You’re In, but with a Mind to Do Something”:
The Practice of Merging in James Dickey’s TotheWhiteSea 25
Part II. A Matter of Context: Region and Place
2. One Writer’s Place: The South of George Garrett 51
3.Representing Urban Appalachia: Fred Chappell’s
TheGaudyPlace 66
4.The Truths of William Hoffman’s Southern Appalachian Places:
The Critics’ and His Own 86
5. Southern Appalachian Montage: Reviewing Books across Regions
(A Collection) 103
Part III. Looking Closer: A State of Place
6. “Out of Space, Out of Time”: The Virginia Novels of
Julien Green 125
7. Hanging On to Place: The Self-Reflexive Depths of
Kelly Cherry’s Fiction 141
8.Here, There, Where: David Huddle’s Appalachian Virginia 155
Epilogue: Writing for a Place—A Writer’s Workshop for McDowell
County, West Virginia 177
Works Cited 189
Index 199
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Acknowledgments
As this book represents the culmination of my four previous scholarly
books—the end of a decade-long intellectual odyssey which began with
Elements: The Novels of James Dickey—I would like to thank en masse
all the press and journal staffs I have worked with over those years who
made it possible for me to realize my five-book cyclical vision. I know
of staff members who have moved on from the positions they inhabited
while working with me and still others who have moved on from this
life. I am grateful to have my books counted among the work into which
they poured their hearts as well as their minds. I hope the results do them
some measure of justice.
For the book at hand, I offer my profound thanks to the staff of the
University Press of Florida and especially Amy Gorelick, who has cham-
pioned and shepherded both of my books listed in the Florida catalogue.
Thanks also are in order to the editors of the following journals, who
have allowed me to use revised material which initially appeared in their
pages: AppalachianJournal,CommunityLiteracy,Elsewhere:AJournalof
Place, Nantahala Review, North Carolina Literary Review, Sewanee Re-
view, Shenandoah, South Carolina Review, and Southern Quarterly. All
translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
I offer special gratitude to the writers I discuss who materialized out of
their work to answer my questions, especially George Garrett (1929–2008)
and William Hoffman (1925–2009), both of whom I had the precious
good fortune to count among my friends, and James Dickey (1923–1997),
who served as my mentor for a short time before his death. “I want you to
fight this thing through,” he said in his final class. “Fight the thing through
that we start with your own unconscious and your own dreams and see
where it comes out.” Well, sir, I have and will continue to do so.
I remain an ardent supporter of the Virginia Foundation for the Hu-
manities and its fellowship program, which afforded me time and intel-
lectual stimulation that helped result in material appearing in each of my