a book
Crapalachia: A Biography of Place
Scott McClanahan · 2013 · 169 pages
*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
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Ocean Vuong
““Scott McClanahan is one of those rare writers who achieves Kafka’s credo that a book should be the axe that shatters the icy soul of our interior. Crapalachia, with its tongue-in-cheek title, is anything but refuse and detritus. In fact, it’s a broken and half-sung ode to place and people and history, a personal reclamation of falsehoods cast on rural communities in West Virginia. It shows that just because the place you live in has been written about by others ad infinitum, does not mean it was written with you or your folks in mind. This book gave me the courage and power to write about Hartford, a city both haunted and adored by the specters of literary giants like Wallace Steven, Mark Twain, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.” -V”↗