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As Bob Sloan sees it, “All writers are only responding to the age-old plea, ‘Tell me a story.’” In Bearskin to Holly Fork, his debut collection, Sloan responds with a group of diverse tales that meet all the tests of successful short stories: They engage the reader’s interest, vividly portray characters to care about, and start and end self-contained plots in a matter of a few pages each. His detailed stories deal head-on with the sadness, hardship, and social ills that are all too real in contemporary Appalachia. Yet even the unpleasant situations are sometimes tinged with humor. From “The Procedure,” in which a man makes a covert trip to Lexington with a younger woman, to the unsettling “Troops,” with its population of unwelcome visitors, Sloan’s stories are surprising, thought-provoking, forthright, and true to the region and the people he loves.
Blurbs from the book jacket
Card catalog entry from the Library of Congress
Publisher’s information pages from Wind Publications in Nicholasville (includes a review by bookclub panelist Judith Hatchett)
Amazon.com information page
Barnes and Noble information page
Short review from a roundup of new books about Appalachia by the Mountain Times of Boone, NC
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