Kentucky by Heart: Biographies of humorist Cobb, iconic Still among newly released Kentucky books

By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

Every several months, I look forward to driving to the Kentucky Monthly office in Frankfort to obtain a selection of newly released Kentucky books to review for the magazine. I define “Kentucky books” simply as ones about Kentucky or written by a Kentucky author.

For my taste, it’s grounds for salivating profusely without being taken to task.

This batch seems, at first glance, especially interesting to me, so I’ll share the titles and give thumbnail sketches, along with some comments. Of course, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, so I will give no evaluations either pro or con at this time. Unless noted, all are 2017 releases.

Here goes.

I’ve long awaited historian and friend Bill Ellis’s new biography, Irvin S. Cobb: The Rise and Fall of an American Humorist (University of Kentucky Press). Paducah-born Irvin Cobb was one of the highest paid and most celebrated American journalists and humorists in America in the early twentieth century. He also was renowned for his short stories.

According to Dr. Ellis, he was “party to the endemic racism of the time,” however, though his works are “worthy of more detailed study because of his wide-ranging contributions to media culture and his coverage of some of the biggest stories of the day.”

Lexington native Jesse Donaldson’s On Homesickness (West Virginia University Press) is, according to another native Kentucky writer Fenton Johnson, “a masterful meditation on nostalgia, founded in the tender device of riffs on the 120 counties of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.” Now living in Oregon, Donaldson examines, he says, “whether we can ever return to the places we’ve called home.”

The author plans to embark on a 120-county tour of the state, starting in October 2017, to read passages from his book.

Another two books, by author Tom Jones, are 2017 releases, volumes I and II of the On a Burning Deck: An Oral History of the Great Migration Create (Create Space) series. They have long titles, for sure, if you include all the information. The accounts speak to what I think is a fascinating subject, that being the Appalachian migration northward to seek jobs through much of the 20th Century.

Eastern Kentucky was the source of much of that quest to gain an enhanced livelihood. The first volume, dealing with the years 1900-1920, is called The Road to Akron; the second, Return to Akron, covers the 1920-1991 period. Emphasis is put on the migrants who found work in the rubber factories of Ohio.

Any student of the Kentucky literary landscape is aware of the influence of the iconic James Still, who wrote his great words near the banks of Troublesome Creek near the mountain town of Hindman, in Knott County. James Still: A Life, in what the publisher University Press of Kentucky calls “the definitive biography of the man known as the ‘dean of Appalachian literature,’ author Carol Boggess tells the story of the private man who preferred life in a century-old log house, and who penned The River of Earth, often compared to Steinbeck’s great The Grapes of Wrath.

I’m excited to have this tome sitting as a treasured resource on my bookshelf…of course, after I read it.

As either an academic-style resource book or a coffee table fixture replete with colorful pictures, the 252-page Water in Kentucky: Natural History, Communities, and Conservation might fill the bill.

This University Press of Kentucky publication is edited by three experts who, says the promotional literature, “explain how water has defined regions across the Commonwealth. Together, they illuminate the ways in which this resource has affected the lives of Kentuckians since the state’s settlement, exploring the complex relationships among humans, landscapes, and waterways.”

Loving Kentucky and being an elementary school teacher for many years, I’m excited about reading Danville writer Heather Henson’s The Whole Sky (Atheneum Books for Young Readers). One might remember back in 2001 when over 500 Thoroughbred foals died in broodmare farms in Kentucky. Though Henson notes that her story is fictionalized, it is inspired by the terrible events of the time. Her book is about a horse whisperer, Sky Doron, who attempts to “connect the dots” by using her gift to solve the mystery.

The book is focused toward an audience of ages 10-12, but good children’s literature often has a way of transcending age levels.

Elizabethtown native David J. McCormack’s war memoir comes in timely fashion after the recent PBS series, The Vietnam War. Written by Lexington author Karen Angelucci, Vietnam 365: Our Tour Through Hell, McCormack “shares what life was really like for those who served in Vietnam from 1970-71, where the threat of death could come any time, and Hell seemed like home for 365 days.”

Angelucci has previously published gardening books, both for adults and children, including Secrets of a Kentucky Gardener and Across Grandma’s Garden.

The Last Resort: Journal of a Salt River Camp 1942-43 (Murkey Press) is partly a field journal, partly a diary. The book gives an account of the outdoor adventures of a group of young men in rural central Kentucky, Anderson County, before they were called to serve during World War II. The words written down came from John C. Goodlet, who would later receive a Ph.D. in biology at Harvard and eventually became a full professor at Johns Hopkins University in the area of geography.

Goodlet and friend Bobby Cole built a cabin, affectionately called “The Last Resort,” in the woodsy location and it became the focal point of the group’s chronicled activities.

One might need only to read the titles of Lexington author/speaker Terry Foody’s books and you’ll feel like you’ve read the whole of it! Try these: The Cherokee and the Newsman, Kinsmen in Words: The Story of Sequoyah, Inventor of the Cherokee Alphabet and His Half-Nephew, Howard Gratz, Editor of the Kentucky Gazette (Terry Foody) and The Pie Seller, the Drunk, and the Lady: Heroes of the 1833 Cholera Epidemic in Lexington, Kentucky. (Terry Foody, 2016). One thing for sure, Terry is a meticulous researcher and is also a member of the Kentucky Humanities Speaker Bureau. She passionately looks for the unknown “little” stories in Kentucky history and then enlightens her audience. I like that a lot.

Hope you’ll take a look at Kentucky’s newest offerings in its prized literary landscape.

My friend Sherry Williams, Woodford County, has founded Unity Outreach: Homeless Shelter Project of Versailles. Though many in the community are unaware of a serious problem, Sherry has researched the Versailles area and found many who “suffer with no food and no place to lay their heads at night,” she notes.

She poses this question to others: Can you imagine sleeping in the rain or snow during the hottest and coldest temperatures? Because of her concern, and others in likewise fashion, she plans to use Unity Outreach to serve as the means to “provide safe shelter, food, support services and an avenue to self-sufficiency for homeless adults and families in our community.”

Initially, it is hoped that funds can be raised to build a 5,000-square-feet building in the downtown area of Versailles to ensure those services for such a vulnerable population.

According to Sherry, here are some numbers dealing with the need in this community:

— currently an estimated 32 homeless individuals in Woodford County
— one of every four homeless men is a military veteran
— approximately 80 percdnt of homeless individuals are homeless only one time in their lives