Since the early 1930s, James Still made his home in eastern Kentucky, living in an ancient log cabin on Dead Mare Branch and supporting himself by farming, teaching, and serving as librarian for the Hindman Settlement School. He is the author of several works of fiction, among them River of Earth, The Run for the Elbertas, An Appalachian Mother Goose, and of the collection of poems, From the Mountain, From the Valley.
" River of Earth is fiction. But it is far too honest, too human,
too real and believable, to be considered a manufactured saga of a
historically stricken region deep within our American landscape.
[...] [It] is an extremely important slice of Appalachia, a culture
that has far too often been ignored or left behind by the
full-speed-ahead achievements of this country over the past 100
years. Which is precisely why River of Earth needs to be
rediscovered. Relevant as ever, it remains worthy of our attention
and praise and reflection. It is genuine Americana told in a
brilliant, clear, lyrical style. I want to make sure people know
about it." -- Midwest Book Review
"A tenderly written and well-sustained story." -- New York
Times
"Among best novels, we may distinguish between "greats" and smaller
masterpieces... Small masterpieces are not so deep nor so grand in
scope. Yet their art may be just as exquisite, for these books
render a limited human action just right. You finish them thinking
you would neither change a word nor omit a scene. Willa Cather's
Death Comes for the Archbishop is such a book; so is Hemingway's
The Old Man and the Sea. Another work of fiction that surely ranks
among America's small masterpieces is as Kentuckian as a book can
be. This is James Still's River of Earth... From first to last,
Still's scenic art is nearabout perfect. It yields a carefully
observed canvas of life of a particular place and time. --
Advocate-Messenger" -- James L. Nicholson, Advocate-Messenger
"As you read you can hear the redbirds in the plum thickets and
smell the pawpaws at first frost; you know, too, what it means to
scrape the bottom of the meat box with a plow blade, hunting for a
rind of pork amid the salt when the mines are closed." --
Washington Post
"His characters are endowed with vigor and stature. Its achievement
as an artisic creation of a people and a locale is as sound as its
pretensions are modest." -- Saturday Review of Books
"Mr. Still's local language is true and good." -- Lincoln Herald
Times
"Still tells of [his people's] japes and sorrows and near
starvation, the rich archaic poetry of their talk and customs in a
clear, dry style as unsentimental as his seven-year-old's eyes. He
has produced a work of art." -- Time Magazine
"There is hunger and suffering and death in this child's experience
but there is also laughter, riddles and tales told from the past,
and the surrounding natural landscape moving from one season to the
next. The reappearance of River of Earth is a welcome literary
event." -- Wilma Dykeman, South Atlantic Bulletin
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