Kentucky by Heart: Diverse sampling of stories best illustrate, explain life in the Blue Grass state

By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

In last week’s Kentucky by Heart, I shared a virtual tour of Kentucky via the books I have on the shelves in The Kentucky Room, which is another name for my personal writing room at my home in Versailles.

My focus was on some noted authors from the state, and for whom their books are ones I most aggressively collect, including: Wendell Berry, David Dick, Thomas Merton, Barbara Kingsolver, and others. This week, allow me to share a diverse sampling of individual books that shout KENTUCKY in a major way…ones that will always be special, at least as I see them.

Letcher County’s Harry Caudill wrote Night Comes to the Cumberlands in the early 1960s and many believe that the author and book influenced the establishment of the Lyndon Baines Johnson War on Poverty program began in that decade. The book is depressing to read at times, as the native eastern Kentucky lawyer, state legislator, and environmentalist hits hard on the subject of poverty.

He also tells of the early migration to the area, and later outside exploitation in the taking of mineral rights on private landowners’ land. Night, not without controversy when published because of the warts it showed, did a powerful number on me (read a couple of times), and I keep a couple copies of this important work close at hand.

I’ve written many stories and visited the eastern Kentucky region a lot, but this book, in particular, hits home for me. As a side note, a recent book which focuses more on the important role of his community-involved wife, Anne Caudill, is a joy. It’s called The Caudills of the Cumberlands: Anne’s Story of Life with Harry, by Terry Cummins. You’ll wonder why Anne’s fascinating life wasn’t profiled much earlier.

If you’re an Abraham Lincoln enthusiast, a must for your collection of this Hodgenville, Kentucky, native and 16th president is William H. Townsend’s book, Lincoln and the Bluegrass: Slavery and Civil War in Kentucky. Townsend’s intellectual foundation doesn’t detract from writing that is quite easy to read, like a smooth and almost poetic fiction piece.

The author’s point is that Lincoln’s connections to central Kentucky (wife Mary Todd Lincoln was from Lexington, for example) helped form his viewpoints on the matter of slavery in America; it later resulted in actions that help define the presidential icon today.

I also like Townsend’s Hundred Proof: Salt River Sketches & Memoirs of the Bluegrass. He was a principal member of the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable and his early research and knowledge of Lincoln’s life brought national recognition. I hope to collect a good portion of Townsend’s works for my shelves.

Another Lexington area historian whose literary contributions facilitate my virtual trip around the state is Winston “Squire” Coleman, Jr. Perhaps my favorite book of Coleman’s is The Squire’s Sketches of Lexington. It includes over a hundred pages of individual information briefs (sketches), along with numerous old pictures, maps, and other graphic representations of the city of Lexington.

The book is arranged chronologically from the year 1772 to 1972, and it is a treasure of information. I found the most striking element to be the high number of destructive fires that occurred throughout the city’s history. Some buildings, or their replacement buildings, burned more than once. One likely will gain a more pro-preservationist view of Lexington’s (and other cities like Lexington) old “places,” as there are real human stories behind each of them.

I’d recommend a sit-down time to peruse the whole book as a panoramic journey, then to keep Ol’ Winston’s gem around for a ready resource—and to use in conversation. Don’t forget to check out others of his offerings, as there are many.

Here’s a rapid-fire list of books for your shelves that are sure to quench your thirst for Kentucky fare.

Try The Believers, by Janice Holt Giles, which is a novel that examines marriage in a Shaker community, and where things don’t work very well. How about The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, or The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, both written by nationally recognized John Fox, Jr. in the early 1900s? He was born in Stony Point, a tiny dot in Bourbon County in the central part of the state. He speaks well the language of the mountains, however.

Tracy Campbell’s biography of a man of enormous intellect and political skills, Short of the Glory: The Fall and Redemption of Edward F. Prichard Jr., proved to be a fascinating read. Prichard, though plagued by poor health, blindness, and his personal failings, came agonizingly close to being a national political star for the ages, but it didn’t happen.

On balance, he left a positive legacy that spurred the state of Kentucky toward educational advancements. I plan to engage this book again at some point.