In the summer of 1957, the Indiana towns of French Lick and West Baden decided to merge two high schools that had been fierce rivals for decades. It was a decision that did not go over well in those divided communities. W. Timothy Wright weaves the gripping story here, chronicling the events that followed the fateful consolidation of two schools and two basketball teams. But an extraordinary first season slowly revealed the team s fierce determination to win, and the players became a microcosm of the two towns, teaching its citizens how to come together as one united community. As these ten boys and their coaches embarked on an epic journey, filled with valuable life lessons, they had no idea they were about to record one of the most unforgettable chapters in Indiana high school basketball. The Valley Boys shares a story of a special high school basketball team that came together for an unbelievable, unexpected, and historic season.

Written in response to the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster of 1931 in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, The Book of the Dead is an important part of West Virginia's cultural heritage and a powerful account of one of the worst industrial catastrophes in American history. The poems collected here investigate the roots of a tragedy that killed hundreds of workers, most of them African American. They are a rare engagement with the overlap between race and environment in Appalachia. Published for the first time alongside photographs by Nancy Naumburg, who accompanied Rukeyser to Gauley Bridge in 1936, this edition of The Book of the Dead includes an introduction by Catherine Venable Moore, whose writing on the topic has been anthologized in Best American Essays.