John O’Brien’s authorial debut, At Home in the Heart of Appalachia, is as good as a first book gets. Well written and easily read, O’Brien’s book is both an interesting read and an insightful look into Appalachia, an often misconceived American landscape. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia is a personal memoir and a historical journey; it is about coping with the loss of a father and a genuine attempt to define Appalachian culture from an Appalachian’s point of view.Conversational in tone and candidly written, John O’Brien’s prose convey his thoughts effortlessly and tell his stories with ease. O’Brien’s book opens with the 1995 death of his father, a man he had not seen in nearly two decades. Instead of going to his father’s funeral, he travels to his father’s birthplace in Piedmont, West Virginia - a place where “the mountains crowd in tight and houses sit at strange angles on impossibly steep hills.” And, like Charleston, South Carolina, the town sits in the shadow of Westvaco and its “yellow sulfide smoke.” “When it rains in Piedmont, the water turns to mild acid that eats the paint from cars and homes…God knows what it does to human beings.”
John O’Brien’s trip to Piedmont segues the book into his family’s travels around America and to their eventual 1984 settling in Franklin, West Virginia. O’Brien, his wife, and their two children finally came home to the mountains, but what they came home to was a town filled with small town provincialism and a fierce distrust of outsiders. O’Brien also came home to a father who viewed his writing career with condescension. His father didn’t see writing as real work and thought his son was a failure.
But write is what John O’Brien did, and the split between he and his father grew. An unfortunate and disheartening separation for O’Brien, who had grown up admiring his father’s work ethic, and his love of subsistence living - a lifestyle John O’Brien still clings to fiercely. But despite his love for his father, the rift between them grew.
As O’Brien was dealing with his father’s disappointment, he was also trying to write a book about Appalachia - maybe the book I’m reviewing now - but he had a hard time defining the topic on which he had promised to write. What is Appalachia? Where is Appalachia? Who are Appalachians? He didn’t want to create caricatures of simple country folk because they existed all across America and weren’t uniquely Appalachian. It was a real struggle for O’Brien to define Appalachia and much of this book revolves around his search for true Appalachian culture.
In his search for this truth, O’Brien uncovers the atrocities of the coal and lumber industries. The men who ran the coal and lumber companies swindled West Virginians, raped the environment, and then left town before anyone had the chance to fight. “In one transaction a company “bought” sixty-four million tons of coal for $200” and not a penny of their profit went to the local populace. These occurrences were common, and they created the distrust of outsiders that O’Brien had discovered in Franklin.
Through years of living in West Virginia and one devastating Hurricane, O’Brien hunted for an elusive Appalachia and searched for inner-peace. I’m not sure if he ever found what he was looking for, but he has written a wonderful memoir defining a beautiful complicated place. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia is a very personal book written candidly and, I believe, honestly. It is a book well worth reading, and Appalachia is a place well worth discovering.
...
*Originally published in the Charleston City Paper (2001). For more about mining in West Virginia, read Leah's post, Mountaintop Mining.
John O’Brien’s trip to Piedmont segues the book into his family’s travels around America and to their eventual 1984 settling in Franklin, West Virginia. O’Brien, his wife, and their two children finally came home to the mountains, but what they came home to was a town filled with small town provincialism and a fierce distrust of outsiders. O’Brien also came home to a father who viewed his writing career with condescension. His father didn’t see writing as real work and thought his son was a failure.
But write is what John O’Brien did, and the split between he and his father grew. An unfortunate and disheartening separation for O’Brien, who had grown up admiring his father’s work ethic, and his love of subsistence living - a lifestyle John O’Brien still clings to fiercely. But despite his love for his father, the rift between them grew.
As O’Brien was dealing with his father’s disappointment, he was also trying to write a book about Appalachia - maybe the book I’m reviewing now - but he had a hard time defining the topic on which he had promised to write. What is Appalachia? Where is Appalachia? Who are Appalachians? He didn’t want to create caricatures of simple country folk because they existed all across America and weren’t uniquely Appalachian. It was a real struggle for O’Brien to define Appalachia and much of this book revolves around his search for true Appalachian culture.
In his search for this truth, O’Brien uncovers the atrocities of the coal and lumber industries. The men who ran the coal and lumber companies swindled West Virginians, raped the environment, and then left town before anyone had the chance to fight. “In one transaction a company “bought” sixty-four million tons of coal for $200” and not a penny of their profit went to the local populace. These occurrences were common, and they created the distrust of outsiders that O’Brien had discovered in Franklin.
Through years of living in West Virginia and one devastating Hurricane, O’Brien hunted for an elusive Appalachia and searched for inner-peace. I’m not sure if he ever found what he was looking for, but he has written a wonderful memoir defining a beautiful complicated place. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia is a very personal book written candidly and, I believe, honestly. It is a book well worth reading, and Appalachia is a place well worth discovering.
...
*Originally published in the Charleston City Paper (2001). For more about mining in West Virginia, read Leah's post, Mountaintop Mining.
