Stories in 'Sidle Creek' offer an insider look at Appalachia
The 22 stories in Sidle Creek charm, surprise, and convey a deep love of the people and place — the Appalachian plateau of western Pennsylvania — that author Jolene McIlwain has long called home.
In a 2017 piece for Salon, writer and historian Elizabeth Catte wrote: "Every generation of politicians, writers, analysts, academics and economists believes it has discovered something unique or horrible or paradoxical about Appalachia."
Indeed, especially since 2016, it seems, and the release of now Republican senator J. D. Vance's — and — book, , there has been an odd smugness among people who've never set foot in the region casually analyzing and diagnosing it like armchair therapists. Thankfully, there are against oversimplified narratives.
