Boston Book Festival 2019

If you’ve read Hillbilly Elegy and think you know everything you need to know about Appalachia, come to this session for a very different perspective. We are joined by Chelsea Jack and Meredith McCarroll, both contributors to the anthology Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, which is critical of Hillbilly Elegy for being “anti-intellectual, overly anecdotal, and attempting to revitalize widely discredited ‘culture of poverty’ explanations for persistent inequities.” Our third panelist is Madeline ffitch, author of Stay and Fight, a powerful novel set in Appalachia in which a yuppie from Seattle becomes an unlikely homesteader with an unconventional family of choice. Publishers Weekly, in its starred review, called Stay and Fight a “remarkable, gripping debut novel.” Our moderator is author and poet Rusty Barnes, whose recent books include Appalachia Now: Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia and Ridgerunner.