These Appalachian Stories Are Better Than HILLBILLY ELEGY

Each of the nine stories in this collection is set in Muscadine, a small town tucked up against the Appalachian foothills in Northern Georgia. In “Blackwater,” a young boy is told about his ancestor Ida Peal, a woman lynched in the 1920s who is said to still roam the area where she died. In “Gris-Gris,” a girls’ high school basketball team tries to solve the disappearance of their teammate Lucy Boudreaux.

In one of my favorite stories, “Kelsey and Ansley,” two estranged sisters find themselves living together after their grandmother dies. The sisters were orphaned when they were still in high school and went to live with their grandmother. But Kelsey, the older sister, left town as soon as she could, right after she graduated. Since then, the sisters have barely talked, and now all that has been left unsaid has piled up between them. After their grandmother dies and leaves Ansley the house, Kelsey shows up asking to stay. Their relationship is so delicate. There’s so much love there but so much frustration, too. I love the way that Ductan handles their relationship, and their loneliness and need for connection that pushes the estranged sisters towards each other.

All of the stories in this collection delve into ideas around loneliness and longing. These characters long for connection, and Ductan has this way of pushing her characters toward resolution that sucks readers in as we wait to find out what happens. I adore these stories and think they’re wonderful, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Back in March, at the Appalachian Studies Association, it was announced that Daughters of Muscadine won the 2023 Weatherford Award for fiction, an honor so well deserved.