The hidden truths of my life growing up in the Appalachians with no control over the outcome. Dangerous situations, from going hungry to downright death at the door to escape. Trapped in hard times going to school hungry after being kept up at an all night cock fight, to name a few. Awakening to an explosion in the night, only to see the house was on fire and running for my life not knowing if my siblings were still in the house. Families stuck together to help each other to find a way when there seemed to be none. Many fights between my mom and dad over his gambling habit and an empty refrigerator. The horrific feeling to learn your brother has been charged with murder and your thought is, no way. The amount of difficulty in my childhood left me in a love hate situation. I loved my family, but hated my childhood circumstances.

Meredith Sue Willis’s Out of the Mountains is a collection of thirteen short stories set in contemporary Appalachia. Firmly grounded in place, the stories voyage out into the conflicting cultural identities that native Appalachians experience as they balance mainstream and mountain identities. Willis’s stories explore the complex negotiations between longtime natives of the region and its newcomers and the rifts that develop within families over current issues such as mountaintop removal and homophobia. Always, however, the situations depicted in these stories are explored in the service of a deeper understanding of the people involved, and of the place. This is not the mythic version of Appalachia, but the Appalachia of the twenty-first century.

The Southern Appalachian Mountains at the turnof the 20th century provide the backdrop for this dark tale of cultural transformation, serial murder, love, loss, and ultimatetriumph in a land on the edge of irrevocable change. Walker Tom Monteith lives by his own laws, makes his own rules, and loves the beautiful women he murders. But more than anything, Walker Tom loves the Great Smoky Mountains. He built his home from their trees, grows his food in their dirt, takes water from the pure springs that bubble out of their rocks, hunts and fishes their bounty. They are his comfort, his solitude, and his refuge. They are his mountains.Taylor Henry, the independent young woman who dreams of adventure in the high mountains, signs on as manager of Line Camp # 9, a logging camp that houses and feeds the timber crews who are cutting the virgin forests. It is there that Taylor finds the life she's been seeking and begins to dream of even greater mountains to climb.Tick Henry, who spent years tracking bad men in the Oklahoma Territory,comes home to the mountains and encounters an evil that will ultimately take him years to confront. Along the way he finds hope, renewal, and the ghosts of his own past when he comes face to face with the daughter he barely knows.Goodman Brant has left his Mohawk home in Ontario and journeyed to the land of the Cherokees seeking not only his past, but his future. While crossing a ridge one morning in early May of 1902,he witnesses an event that sets this tale in motion and ultimately creates the only ending that can satisfy our sense of justice. The author ties together old mountain legends, the historical record of the developing logging industry, and research into the history of his own family with a vivid imagination and the ability to create events as frighteningly real as today's news.

Excerpt from Gena of the Appalachians It was late in the afternoon of a cold winter's day when they sent for him to go and perform the last sad rites at the burial of Lucky Joe. Lucky Joe had outstripped the law in his crimes for more than forty years - hence the people had well dubbed him "Lucky." For more than three decades his name had been the synonym of dread and fear among the people of the hills. He had at length whipped them into granting him whatever he exacted of them, whether the thing in itself was right or wrong. But one memorable day, the tardy finger of the law apprehended him, and he stood up before the bar of Justice and heard the court pronounce, "Joseph Filson, guilty!" Quickly he was ushered away to the penitentiary - down to a Southern jail and to hard and endless toil for the remainder of his life. The gates of the prison closed and locked their iron jaws behind him: his keeper admonished him to be obedient, and he immediately chose to work at the blacksmith's forge. Day after day, he swung the sledge in silence. Then the days crowded into months and into years, but he pounded away at the anvil unmindful of the end. Finally death came and knocked at the door of his narrow cell and took him away. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Appalachian literature is filled with silent or non-discursive characters. The reasons for their wordlessness vary. Some are mute or pretend to be, some choose not to speak or are silenced by grief, trauma or fear. Others mutter monosyllables, stutter, grunt and point, speak in tongues or idiosyncratic language. They capture the reader's attention by what they don't say.

Colman Harpe works for the C&O in the Appalachian rail town of Thurmond, West Virginia, but he'd rather be a preacher and lead his own congregation. When a member of the rival McLean clan guns down his cousin and the clan matriarch, Serepta McLean, taunts the Harpes by coming to a tent revival in their territory, Colman chooses peace over seeking revenge with the rest of his family. Colman, known for an unnaturally keen sense of hearing, is shocked when he hears God tell him to preach to the McLeans. A failed attempt to run away leaves Colman sick and suffering in the last place he wanted to be--McLean territory. Nursed by herbalist Ivy Gordon--a woman whose birthmark has made her an outcast--he's hindered in his calling by Serepta's iron grip on the region and his uncle's desire to break that grip. But appearances can be deceiving, and he soon learns that the face of evil doesn't look like he expected.