Upheaval

The acclaimed author of Hell and Ohio shares a story collection set in Eastern Kentucky "e;so visceral that you can almost feel the grit of coal dust"e; (Booklist). Chris Holbrook burst onto the southern literary scene with Hell and Ohio: Stories of Southern Appalachia, stories that Robert Morgan described as "e;elegies for land and lives disappearing under mudslides from strip mines and new trailer parks and highways."e; Now, with the publication of Upheaval, Holbrook more than answers the promise of that auspicious debut. In eight interrelated stories set in Eastern Kentucky, Chris Holbrook captures a region and its people as they struggle in the face of poverty, isolation, change, and the devastation of land at the hands of the coal and timber industries. With a native's ear for dialect and a gritty realism reminiscent of Larry Brown and Cormac McCarthy, the stories in Upheaval prove that Holbrook is not only a faithful chronicler and champion of Appalachia's working poor but also one of the most gifted writers of his generation.