Synopses & Reviews
Crapalachia is a portrait of Scott McClanahan's formative years, coming of age in rural West Virginia, during a stretch of time where he was deeply influenced by his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy.
Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana.
Beyond the artistry, there is an optimism, a genuine love for people and the past and memories. Even more, there is a grasp to bridge the disconnect between reader and writer, for McClanahan's stories to bind us closer to one another.
Review
"McClanahan's prose is unfettered and kinetic and his stories seem like a hyper-modern iteration of local color fiction. His delivery is guileless and his morality ambivalent and you get the sense, while reading him, that he is sitting next to you on a barstool, eating peanuts and drinking a beer, and intermittently getting up to pick a song on the jukebox." The Rumpus
Review
"In this innovative 'biography,' McClanahan...chronicles the peculiarities of Appalachian life punctuated by mine collapses, quotidian tragedies, and recipes for chicken and gravy and is infused with both boundless love and the ever-present specter of death....His singular mission is to create a lasting testament to the people he has loved and he succeeds: [Crapalachia] leaves an enduring impression." Publishers Weekly (Starred)
Review
"McClanahan's frenetic account of life growing up in rural West Virginia practically seethes with place, with empathy, with humor and violence and the boringness/incredibleness of being young." Flavorwire
Review
"[Crapalachia is] a wild and inventive book, unquestionably fresh of spirit, and totally unafraid to break formalisms to tell it like it was." Vice
Review
"Part memoir, part hillbilly history, part dream, McClanahan embraces humanity with all its grit, writing tenderly of criminals and outcasts, family and the blood ties that bind us." Interview Magazine
Review
"A brilliant, unnerving, beautiful curse of a book that will both haunt and charmingly engage readers for years and years and years." The Nervous Breakdown
Review
"McClanahan's style is as seductive as a circuit preacher's. Crapalachia is both an homage and a eulogy for a place where, through the sorcery of McClanahan's storytelling, we can all pull up a chair and find ourselves at home." San Diego City Beat
Synopsis
A colorful and elegiac coming-of-age story that announces Scott McClanahan as a resounding, lasting talent.
Synopsis
When Scott McClanahan was fourteen he went to live with his Grandma Ruby and his Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Crapalachia is a portrait of these formative years, coming-of-age in rural West Virginia.
Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana.
Scott McClanahan is the author of Stories II and Stories V His fiction has appeared in BOMB, Vice, and New York Tyrant. His novel Hill William is forthcoming from Tyrant Books.
Synopsis
*One of the Best Books of 2013 --The Millions, Flavorwire, Dazed & Confused, The L Magazine, Time Out Chicago
"McClanahan's prose is miasmic, dizzying, repetitive. A rushing river of words that reflects the chaos and humanity of the place from which he hails. McClanahan] aims to lasso the moon... He is not a writer of half-measures. The man has purpose. This is his symphony, every note designed to resonate, to linger." --New York Times Book Review
Crapalachia is a portrait of Scott McClanahan's formative years, coming of age in rural West Virginia, during a stretch of time where he was deeply influenced by his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy.
Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana.
Beyond the artistry, there is an optimism, a genuine love for people and the past and memories. Even more, there is a grasp to bridge the disconnect between reader and writer, for McClanahan's stories to bind us closer to one another.
"Crapalachia is the genuine article: intelligent, atmospheric, raucously funny and utterly wrenching. McClanahan joins Daniel Woodrell and Tom Franklin as a master chronicler of backwoods rural America." --The Washington Post
Synopsis
"There were 13 of them. The children had names that ended in Y sounds. There was Betty and there was Annie and there was Stirley and there was Stanley and there was Leslie and there was Gary and there was Larry and there was Terry.
Ruby said: 'I like names that end in Y.'
They all grew up in Danese, WV, eating blackberries for breakfast and eating blackberries for lunch and watching the snow come beneath the door in the wintertime."
When Scott McClanahan was fourteen he went to live with his Grandma Ruby and his Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Crapalachia is a portrait of these formidable years, coming of age in rural West Virginia.
Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana.
About the Author
Scott McClanahan is the writer of Stories II and Stories V!. His fiction has appeared in Bomb, Vice, and New York Tyrant. His novel Hill William is forthcoming from Tyrant Books.