Friday, March 12, 2010

Five favorite books of Appalachia

Katie Pickard Fawcett, who grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, is the author of a newly released novel for young readers, To Come and Go Like Magic; it's about 12 year-old Chili Mahoney, who has never been outside of her small Appalachian town.

She named her five favorite books of Appalachia for C.M. Mayo's "Madam Mayo" blog. One title on the list:
Hunter's Horn by Harriette Arnow

A bestselling novel about a Kentucky hill farmer and his efforts to catch a sly red fox he calls King Devil. (Many people are familiar with Ms. Arnow's most popular novel -- The Dollmaker. Made into a TV movie in 1983 starring Jane Fonda, it told the story of a Kentucky family's difficult move from their farm to a Detroit housing project.) It was Hunter's Horn, however, that first brought Ms. Arnow national fame, and the book finished that year close to William Faulkner's A Fable for the Pulitzer Prize. Joyce Carol Oates has called this novel "our most unpretentious American masterpiece."
Read about the other books on the list.

Visit Katie Pickard Fawcett's blog, Kite Dreams.

--Marshal Zeringue