Rennie's Way Book

"This first work of fiction by Verna Mae Slone, firmly grounded in her own background, is set in the 1920s and 1930s in a closeknit community in eastern Kentucky, where family roots run deep. At its center stands as strong and resilient a heroine as any in American literature. Verna Mae Slone, a native of Knott County, Kentucky, is the author of several books, including the bestselling memoir, What My Heart Wants to Tell.

Publishers Weekly

Set in Eastern Kentucky's Lonesome Holler of the 1920s and '30s, this first novel, an expanded, refocused and retitled edition of Slone's 1982 self-published Sarah Ellen , deals with the harsh life of Rennie Slone. The death of their mother when Rennie is 12 means that Rennie must care for her infant sister, Sarah Ellen, and keep house for her father, a stern Baptist preacher. Though Rennie's hopes for her own education are dashed, she dreams that one day Sarah Ellen will go to high school at Caney Creek Community Center (founded by real-life activist Alice Lloyd). Rennie's days, meanwhile, are brightened by nurse Miss Rose, who lends her books, and by her cousin Johnnie, who sings charming old ditties and grows to love her. Believing she was ``born to be an old maid,'' she spurns his affections, accepting her hard life with grace along with the other enterprising, hardy folk of Lonesome Holler. Through coal mine disasters, the shooting of a young man who loves Sarah Ellen and other deaths, Rennie moves toward realizing her dream for her sister. Though time sequences are sometimes confusing, Slone's style, which includes dialogue written in dialect, is lively. Readers drawn to regional tales will enjoy learning about Lonesome Holler. (June)