Book description
Much criticism has been directed at negative stereotypes of Appalachia
perpetuated by movies, television shows, and news media. Books, on the
other hand, often draw enthusiastic praise for their celebration of the
simplicity and authenticity of the Appalachian region. Dear Appalachia:
Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 employs the innovative
new strategy of examining fan mail, reviews, and readers' geographic
affiliations to understand how readers have imagined the region and what
purposes these imagined geographies have served for them. As Emily
Satterwhite traces the changing visions of Appalachia across the
decades, from the Gilded Age (1865-1895) to the present, she finds that
every generation has produced an audience hungry for a romantic version
of Appalachia. According to Satterwhite, best-selling fiction has
portrayed Appalachia as a distinctive place apart from the mainstream
United States, has offered cosmopolitan white readers a sense of
identity and community, and has engendered feelings of national and
cultural pride. Thanks in part to readers' faith in authors as authentic
representatives of the regions they write about, Satterwhite argues,
regional fiction often plays a role in creating and affirming regional
identity. By mapping the geographic locations of fans, Dear Appalachia
demonstrates that mobile white readers in particular, including regional
elites, have idealized Appalachia as rooted, static, and protected from
commercial society in order to reassure themselves that there remains an
“authentic” America untouched by global currents. Investigating texts
such as John Fox Jr.'s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), Harriette
Arnow's The Dollmaker (1954), James Dickey's Deliverance (1970), and
Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain (1997), Dear Appalachia moves beyond
traditional studies of regional fiction to document the functions of
these narratives in the lives of readers, revealing not only what people
have thought about Appalachia, but why. Emily Satterwhite, assistant
professor of Appalachian studies, American studies, and popular culture
at Virginia Tech, has published in American Literature, Journal of
American Folklore, and Appalachian Journal.
