Achingly intelligent ... As she recounts growing up in the literal shadow of the Appalachians and in the figurative shadow of the Pentecostal church, she asks: Is salvation in ministry or mountains, pulpit or place? Do I belong to one or the other? To both or neither? ... To her great credit, Hackney refuses to let her story become a bootstraps narrative ... In Hackney’s telling, there are no welfare-state villains or hard-working heroes. There are only individuals: living, breathing humans with all their nuance and complexity. When it comes to writing about rural Appalachia, Hackney’s memoir proves that an elegy is the last thing we need.
Harvard graduate Hackney debuts with a thought-provoking account of her early life in Appalachian Virginia ... Hackney examines the explosive intersection of charismatic Christianity, misogyny, and young love, and offers an inspiring testament to writing one’s way out. This heartfelt missive successfully humanizes hot-button subjects.
Hackney’s memoir runs long, with many variations on a few themes, but, overall, it makes a fine rejoinder and update to Harry Caudill, James Agee, and other chroniclers of Appalachia ... A lucid portrait and defense of a region too often caricatured but little understood.
