Clark returns to his longtime haunt, the small eastern Kentucky town of Sourwood, in his latest story collection, steeped not just in the dialect of his beloved Appalachia but in the values at its core. The stories, centering on the young unnamed narrator and his older brother, Caleb, range from slapstick humor to poignant sketches of some of the town's quixotic inhabitants. The most touching of these revolves around Girty, a lonely woman with the mind of a child, who is knocked off a railroad trestle by a coal train. The collection wouldn't be complete without accounts of the ability of several local "witches" to cast spells, which of course leads to constant baiting and testing by the younger generation. Memorable characters (like the town constable who was "said to have a brain the size of a pea drought-grown") and a strong sense of the natural beauty surrounding Sourwood help explain why this place is obviously dear to the author's heart.
Deborah DonovanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Clark grew up poor in Cattlettsburg in the northeastern corner of Kentucky in the 1940s, and these stories reflect that environment unfailingly." -- Appalachian Heritage
"Memorable characters and a strong sense of the natural beauty surrounding Sourwood help explain why this place is obviously dear to the author's heart." -- Booklist
"A loving and poignant study of life in both the past and present." -- Bourbon (Paris, KY) Times
"Miss America Kissed Caleb is Billy C. Clark at his best with touches of O. Henry and James Still stirred in, and that's the highest compliment I can pay for a writer of short fiction. Clark's characters are growing up, noticing girls, changing from tadpoles to bullfrogs. Funny, bittersweet, bitter, even rowdy, and sometimes sentimental, the stories in this new collection are rife with the details of 1940s rural life and rich in characters who reflect their place and their time. Masterful as always, a storyteller who has perfected his craft, Billy C. Clark has done it again." -- Garry Barker, author of Notes From a Native Son
"Here in the new millennium is a writer whose original language, the language of frontier storytellers, is completely unspoiled...this language is pure American poetry." -- Gurney Norman, author of Kinfolks and Divine Right's Trip
"Clark is a master storyteller; his tales have the staying power of myth.... His tales are timeless in the way they entertain us and in the messages they bring us." -- Journal of Appalachian Studies
"With his typical mastery, Billy C. Clark shows the reader an interesting array of characters in this small Kentucky town in the 1940s." -- Kentucky Monthly
"Clark is not a writer who leans on the all-too-familiar Appalachian stereotypes. His characters would still be fully rounded people, torn by the struggle between kindness and meanness, anywhere they lived." -- Lexington Herald-Leader
"Clark recreates in loving and authoritative detail the unwritten history of a rural mountain community. A first-rate collection of stories and sketches." -- Richard Taylor, former Kentucky Poet Laureate
"Clark is a master of the Southern tale.... Readers of all types, from all places, and of all ages can find something of value as Clark's prose pierces the differences that divide people as it touches readers' hearts." -- Union County (KY) Advocate
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
