Appalachia North: A Memoir

By Matthew J. Ferrence and Matthew Ferrence

Book Overview

Appalachia North is the first book-length treatment of the cultural position of northern Appalachia--roughly the portion of the official Appalachian Regional Commission zone that lies above the Mason-Dixon line. For Matthew Ferrence this region fits into a tight space of not-quite: not quite "regular" America and yet not quite Appalachia. Ferrence's sense of geographic ambiguity is compounded when he learns that his birthplace in western Pennsylvania is technically not a mountain but, instead, a dissected plateau shaped by the slow, deep cuts of erosion. That discovery is followed by the diagnosis of a brain tumor, setting Ferrence on a journey that is part memoir, part exploration of geology and place. Appalachia North is an investigation of how the labels of Appalachia have been drawn and written, and also a reckoning with how a body always in recovery can, like a region viewed always as a site of extraction, find new territories of growth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1946684708
• ISBN13: 9781946684707
• Release Date: January 2019
• Publisher: West Virginia University Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 7.9"