Read Before You Go - Books about the Blue Ridge Mountain Area

UPDATED: 11/8/2022

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Since moving to Southwestern Virginia at the tail end of 2009, I have found a few books to provide a well-rounded look into some of the Appalachian culture and history prevalent in this region. Here are three books I would recommend if you are interested in learning more yourself!

Literary Fiction Pick: Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith

384 pages, published in 1988

you may enjoy this book if you like:

historical fiction * literary fiction * southern literary fiction * Appalachian and rural American stories * fiction about strong women

review of fair and tender ladies by lee smith

Lee Smith, the author of Fair and Tender Ladies, which, by the way, is a tongue-in-cheek title, was born in a small town in Southwestern Virginia called Grundy close to the Kentucky border. This is the part of Virginia that people often forget exists. It is a 5 1/2 hour drive from Grundy to the state capital of Richmond and 6-7 hours away from the bustling Northern Virginia corridor.

Lee attended college at Hollins College (now Hollins University), where I also attended a portion of my college years, and well known for its creative writing program. I had the wonderful experience to hear Lee Smith give a book reading at the school about 5 years ago, where she was joined by fellow Southern writer Jill McCorkle.

Fair and Tender Ladies, published in 1988, follows the story of character Ivy Rowe from childhood through life’s milestones, depicting the hardships, challenges, and culture unique to her Appalachian upbringing and life juxtaposed with the world evolving outside of Appalachia in the middle part of the 20th century, a harbinger of things to come for these small, rural towns. The story is written as an epistolary novel and in the Appalachian dialect, that does take some getting used to when reading. This literary novel explores how the concept of family can serve as a gravitational pull that is impossible to get away from, the role of women (and gender) in rural Appalachia, and the speed at which modern life has exacerbated the differences between cities and rural areas.

Cultural and Religious Non-Fiction: The Man Who Moved a Mountain by Richard C. Davids

253 pages, published in 1970

you may enjoy this book if you like:

American History * Appalachian Culture/History * U.S. Religious History * Southern History * Biographies

review of the man who moved a mountain by Richard C. Davids

Before there was the Blue Ridge Parkway, stringing hilltop and valley together and to the next zenith beyond, there were sparsely populated, rural “hollows” (in the local dialect, pronounced “holler”). One of these areas Buffalo Mountain, in Floyd County, Virginia, was essentially cut off, a mountain island unto itself, that is until local-boy-turned-minister Bob Childress decided to bring God to the people as a way to drive out the violence, alcoholism, and other aspects he saw as plagues upon his mountain community.

Bob was born in 1890 and before his death in 1956, he had made a significant impact on his local community and reaches beyond as he took his ministering on the road to other rural areas. The book’s author, Richard C. Davids, first met Bob Childress in 1950 while writing an article for a magazine and continued to meet with him after that. In his time in the area, Davids heard outlandish stories about Bob and the region’s other people and decided to capture all of this in a book so as not to lose those oral stories.

From Bob’s self-described first memory of being drunk and with a hangover at the age of three to his circuitous journey to become a Primitive Baptist minister to the outside world starting to push its way in to seek the community’s land, this book captures an epic story of a small, mountain population in a time period that, when depicted, feels far older than the middle of the 20th century when it actually took place. Just reading about the Primitive Baptist religion itself was fascinating to me. For those less familiar, this is one of the religions that believes in speaking in tongues and snake charming, among other things.

This short read, at 253 pages, peels back the curtain on the real trials, tribulations, stories, and stark humanity in just one Appalachian holler that helps to serve as a stand-in for so many other stories that have been lost.

Cultural and Historical Non-Fiction: Blue Ridge Folklife by Ted Olson

186 pages, published in 1998

review of blue ridge folklife by Ted Olson

This well-researched work is a must-read for anyone interested in the history - in the broadest sense - of the southern Blue Ridge region, which spans a number of states along the Appalachian Mountains - from Georgia up through both Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The author, Ted Olson, is a college professor currently teaching at East Tennessee State University, a folklorist, and served as a Blue Ridge Parkway ranger previously.

I say that this is a must-read for anyone interested in history in the broadest sense because it covers a multi-faceted view of the region - everything from it’s geology and formation to the earliest days and personalities in the region that have their place among American lore (think: Daniel Boone) to the culture that evolved as people emigrated into the area and how those beliefs were made anew from their roots to their new settings to the way that the communities dealt with the day-to-day such as traditions around deaths. The book has sections that explain the common foods and craft-making, customary sports and games prevalent in the region, and how the popular perception of a “hillbilly” played into American perceptions and depictions of the region and, for a long time, hindered the ability to recognize the unique culture there that was gradually disappearing as older generations died. In many ways, this discussion and debate continues to the present day’s politics around coal mining towns and the challenges to rural Appalachian communities.

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