Appalachia North: A Memoir

"Appalachia North is the first book-length treatment of the cultural position of northern Appalachia--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 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"--

Author: Matthew Ferrence
Publisher: West Virginia University Press
Published: 02/11/2019
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.00w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9781946684707
ISBN10: 1946684708
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs
- History | United States | State & Local | South (AL,AR,FL,GA,KY,LA,MS,

About the Author

Matthew Ferrence teaches creative writing at Allegheny College, where he lives and writes at the confluence of the Rust Belt and Appalachia. He and his family divide their time between northwestern Pennsylvania and Prince Edward Island, Canada.