By Steve Yates When my sisters and I knew Mary and Roma best, in the 1970s and 1980s, divorce and contumely raged among our aunts and uncles, our neighbors, and the parents of our peers. Our own parents practiced spectacular, frightening conflicts. Nothing it seemed was too small to spark outrageous clashes, even though my mother and father lived with far more material … [Read more...] about Mary and Roma
Editor’s Note When congratulated on his appointment to replace Benjamin Franklin as minister to France, Thomas Jefferson remarked, “No one can replace him, sir; I am only his successor.” I must express much the same sentiment upon following Craig Albin as editor of Elder Mountain. No one can replace Dr. Albin, but I’m delighted to step in as guest editor. We generally … [Read more...] about Editor’s Note and Submission Guidelines
.footnote {font-size: 0.5rem; vertical-align: super;} aside {margin: 5%;} .content {width: 660px;} Contents Introduction The Text of Parson Brooks Parson Brooks: A Plumb Powerful Hard Shell Chapter I. The Ideal Home Chapter II. "From ignorance our comfort flows; / The only wretched are the wise." Chapter III. A Solemn Afterthought Chapter IV. The … [Read more...] about Parson Brooks: A Plumb Powerful Hard Shell
2015 Ozarks Symposium Keynote Address by Steve Wiegenstein In his 1867 book Beyond the Mississippi, Albert D. Richardson writes about traveling the Ozarks in the late 1850s. While in Springfield he recorded the following anecdote: I was told of eight North Carolinians bound for Arkansas, who stopped for a few hours on the public square, and were asked innumerable … [Read more...] about The Lure of the Ozarks: What’s the Bait, and Who’s the Fish?
by J. Blake Perkins J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy topped the New York Times best-seller list within two months of its wonderfully timed release during the 2016 presidential election season. It finished 2017 as Amazon.com's second-best selling book of the year. Vance, who was born in 1984, is a self-described escapee from the troubled white working-class hill "culture" of his … [Read more...] about (Re)embracing Hill Mythology: A Critique of Hillbilly Elegy