|
|
Article: Novelist conveys 'sad-eyed beauty' of home state West Virginia
- Article from:
- Sunday Gazette-Mail
- Article date:
- January 8, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 Sunday Gazette-Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
Lodged in the labyrinth of the novel "Machine Dreams" is the
answer.
The question is, "Who lives here?" - here being the small,
impoverished town of Tallmansville in central West Virginia - and
it's a completely understandable inquiry, because a dozen coal miners
died in the Sago Mine after a Monday explosion. Television cameras
showed a place of narrow dirt roads and dented pickups and hemmed-in
lives. Reporters described the desperate daily exchange of safety for
dollars.
But the quick and cursory accounts made you long to hear from
somebody who really knows Upshur County. Somebody who scuffed along
those streets as a kid and then, as a teenager, drove fast down them,
car windows wide ...