Overview
- The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Night Watch releases a collection of 22 autobiographical essays that trace how growing up in Buckhannon shaped her writing.
- BookPage and the Christian Science Monitor diverge on form, with one calling it essays and the other a memoir.
- The collection pushes back on stereotypes such as the Hatfield–McCoy trope and urges a more nuanced view of Appalachian life.
- Phillips details environmental harm in West Virginia, citing strip mining, mountaintop removal, and fracking as forces that scar the landscape.
- Subjects range from reporting on a 1997 funeral in Paducah to a Thelma-and-Louise–style road trip and a personal essay on whether to continue a pregnancy.