Given Ground

by Ann Pancake

Departing from Appalachia's 150-year-old literary legacy of formula and caricature, West Virginia native Ann Pancake uses the texture of language, an intense attention to place, and complexity of characterization to recreate the region -- its tragic history and fragile culture, the interior landscapes of its people, and their deep rootedness in a threatened land. Her characters, already marginalized economically and socially, confront what many perceive as an invading outside culture, enduring and at times transcending the loss of their "place," both literally and figuratively. Their stories undermine the assumption that just because people don't articulate what happens inside them, nothing much is happening at all.

• ISBN10: 1584651180
• ISBN13: 9781584651185
• Publish Date: 1 July 2001
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 3 May 2012
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: University Press of New England
• Imprint: Middlebury College Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 136
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

I could only read one or two of these at a time, the weight was so heavy. A good weight. A necessary weight. A weight made all the more powerful by Ann Pancake’s powerhouse words. But, a weight is still a weight.

“Ghostless,” “Dirt,” “Bait,” and “Redneck Boys” are tremendous. Especially “Ghostless” and “Redneck Boys.” And “Bait.”