Like the landscape of the area itself—from the coal mines to the rugged wilds of the Appalachian mountains, with parts of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky—books set in Appalachia cover a wide range of topics. Centered in that landscape, they explore the socio-economic issues impacting the people in the area, forming a rich segment of American literature. Beginning with the voices of the Native Americans who first lived there and running up to the most recent Pulitzer-prize-winning novel, the poetry, songs, and stories of the region have influenced and been influenced by the legends, natural wonders, history, culture, and social issues found there. Read on for a list of 5 great adult books set in Appalachia.
Demon Copperhead
By Barbara Kingsolver
Adult Fiction
Demon Copperhead, whose father drowned at The Devil’s Bathtub before he was born and whose young mother died from an opioid overdose when he was a young child, wants one thing: to see the ocean. His journey through childhood and adolescence in Virginia is an intensely difficult one—poverty, an overwhelmed foster care system, child labor, failing schools, the opioid epidemic—interspersed with a few athletic successes and the creative release of drawing. All of which sounds bleak, but the author, who won a Pulitzer for this work, fuels the reader with both compassion and anger for Demon’s plight, while bringing the landscape of Lee County to life in a narrative tale full of characters you won’t soon forget.
Above the Waterfall
By Ron Rash
Adult Fiction
Combining poetry and poisoned rivers, wild nature and manicured resorts, integrity and intrigue, Rash’s novel—influenced by the poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins—is both a mystery and a paean to North Carolina. Who owns the land, who benefits from its wealth, who is impacted by its destruction? These classic questions of Appalachian literature are explored in the characters of Les, a disillusioned sheriff who is soon to retire, and Becky, a park ranger working to find peace in nature despite her troubled past. When a local is accused of poisoning a river, the two create an uneasy relationship as they try to uncover the truth.
Oral History
By Lee Smith
Adult Fiction
Family history is hard to pin down. The stories come back to us in layers, pieced together in a conglomerate of voices. Lee Smith captures the wandering thread of personal story in Oral History, a narrative about an Appalachian family cursed by a witch woman, starting in 1902 and weaving through the century to the contemporary Jennifer Cantrell, who delves into her dead mother’s family history for her thesis. Where do stories originate? Who will listen to them? How can we preserve them? Smith’s novel answers those questions with a conglomerate of voices and experience.
The Port William Series
By Wendell Berry
Adult Fiction
Wendell Berry is an activist and writer from Kentucky who has published nearly thirty books of poetry, essays, and fiction. His novels explore the congruence of Appalachian farm life and the twentieth century. Contemporary classics, these gentle yet profound works invite readers into the fictional Port William, where different characters solve family disputes, face difficult choices, examine the repercussions of their lives, all with Berry’s guiding principle of the need for humanity to live in harmony with the natural world.
The Last Ballad
By Wiley Cash
Adult Fiction
Set in the 1920s, this novel tells the story of the struggle to form a union for textile workers in North Carolina. When she is asked to share her story at a rally, Ella May Wiggins instead sings a ballad, giving the movement a lyrical voice. Based on historical characters, The Last Ballad illustrates how the efforts of women and African Americans furthered the success of the fight for workers’ rights.
Each of the above books are written by authors who have many other books set in Appalachia, so if you are looking for more, their back catalogs are a great place to begin. You can also keep reading for 4 bonus books we recommend that are also set in Appalachia.
4 More Books Set in Appalachia
Where All Light Tends to Go
By David Joy
Adult Fiction
Set in North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains, eighteen-year-old Jacob McNeely is torn between appeasing his meth-dealing kingpin father and leaving the mountains forever with the girl he loves
Bull Mountain
By Brian Panowich
Adult Fiction
A multigenerational saga set in the mountains of north Georgia, where the Burroughs family has been running shine, pot, and meth for decades. Rogue son Clayton Burroughs has become a local sheriff to keep what peace he can, until an ATF agent who’s not quite what he seems throws a wrench into the works
Cold Mountain
By Charles Frazier
Adult Fiction
Cold Mountain is a novel about a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved near the Civil War’s end. At once a love story & a harrowing account of one man’s long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a new talent in American literature. Based on local history & family stories passed down by Frazier’s great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded Confederate soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war & back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. His odyssey thru the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to revive her father’s farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman & Ada confront the vastly transformed world they’ve been delivered.
The Giver of Stars
By Jojo Moyes
Adult Fiction
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky. What happens to them–and to the men they love–becomes a classic drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion.
This post was updated on August 11, 2023.
