I'm not sure how I came across this book; it may have been in one of the monthly book rags we get. It may have just floated across the desk at some point. It had a West Virginia sticker on it, so I was intrigued.
I'm not sure what kept me reading. The writing isn't bad - I was in the story, but not held captive. I put it down for a few days and wasn't sure if I would pick it up again.
It was downright depressing in some spots. I'm glad it's over, in a way.
It is set in rural, (probably) southern West Virginia and is about a late 20-something guy that sells, but doesn't do, drugs.
It just seemed so...real. Because it was. It is. The mountain people, the people of the land and of the faith and of the hills, versus Big Coal.
Very political. Lots of grit.
But I think, what I connected with most, was the disassociation with yet simultaneous acceptance of personal religion. Not religion, but with a relationship with God. Cole, the main character, struggles determinedly with ghosts - mostly those involving reconciling his vision of the Father with those he was told. He was told how to feel God, how to experience Him, how to talk to him, how to return to and repent. But this was not the way Cole convened at the Master's table. Cole found God in the hills and within his family (when he could learn to forgive himself, and them) and inside 'the old people', as he called them. It's a beautiful understanding of finding God in your own personal way.
This is a portrait of West Virginians, enslaved by being uneducated. It is harsh, it is not unfair, but it is still gentle and kind. Sickels' watercolors bleed together on the page and for the first time, you think that maybe someone is painting an accurate, yet unhostile portrait.
Refreshing. Beautiful, delicate art.
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