Trickster Jack

By E. Reid Gilbert

Every culture has its own trickster character. The Southern Appalachian Mountain trickster is Jack, whom readers may know from traditional stories like "Jack in the Giant's Newground" and "Jack and the Bean Tree."
The stories in Trickster Jack, which focus on the shenanigans of Jack and his older brothers, are actually tall tales emerging from Reid Gilbert's tricky imagination. Set in the Southern Appalachians around the end of the nineteenth century, these tales describe actual activities of the time, such as making a wooden wagon with white oak rounds for wheels, fetching water from wells with windlasses, and using outdoor outhouses.

Trickster Jack introduces those readers from outside the Appalachians to some of the ways and manners of that region, while reacquainting Appalachians themselves with their own heritage. Regardless of where you hail, there is plenty in this whimsical collection to delight and entertain you.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1732728526
• ISBN13: 9781732728523
• Release Date: October 2018
• Publisher: A3d Impressions
• Length: 122 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Trickster Jack

This collection of stories about the Trickster Jack, set in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, is quite delightful, not only to those aware of the treasure trove of the traditional stories about Jack, such as Richard Chase's THE JACK TALES, but also to those who may enjoy an impish character set in a specific folk milieu such as Southern Appalachia. As helpful as the scholarly introduction, Tricksters or the Globalization of Trickery, is to the reader's understanding of pranksters in various cultures around the globe, we welcome the brevity of that academic excursion, as the writer takes us helter-skelter on a trip with Jack through ten stories of how he was involved in setting up old time riddles and introducing some new vocabulary into the English language. Where would the words willful and tomfoolery emanate except from Jack's older brothers, Will and Tom? Some of the stories, such as "Little Jack Horner," are told in obvious settings, but there are other tales like "Ol'Jack's Indoor-Outhouse" which depend almost entirely on the vagaries of Jack's character. Although the dialect presents certain problems to the reader, one might wonder how Tom Sawyer and Uncle Remus might be less engaging if the writers had not used dialect. The "Jack Game" as the epilogue would be interesting for groups to play with language to imagine how Jack may have contributed to other riddles and unusual English words. A highly recommended read for all ages.