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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
Wind Publications information pages (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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