Tear Down the Mountain: An Applachian Love Story Book

In their tiny, secluded mountain community, Sid Lore and Janet Hollar are misfits: Sid because he wasn’t born here, Janet because she can’t satisfy her Pentecostal church’s demand to speak in tongues. The two drift together and get married, and soon the optimistic, independent newlyweds vow to forge their own reality. Appalachian life, however, proves difficult: family and friends die or move away and Sid’s work-related injuries make it impossible to earn a living. As his enters a rut of odd jobs, bar brawls, and dog fights, Janet discovers new worth — and a hidden talent for destruction. Just when they don't think they can sink any lower, the "superior" outside world discovers their mountains, their lake, their forests, and their “rednecks” — which brings new problems. Incisive prose, vivid characters, and a compulsively readable narrative make this novel about lives cramped and cornered by economic and cultural forces a stunning debut.

Publishers Weekly

Poverty and pipe dreams mark the lives of Sid Lore and Janet Hollar, the outsider couple he, from Tennessee, she, unable to speak in tongues (the mark of a true believer in her Pentecostal church) at the heart of Skipper's promising debut. A teenager when he moves to West Virginia's Union County, Sid spends the next decade trying to fit in, but a back injury prevents him from finding work that's anything above menial. The balance of power shifts when Janet becomes the breadwinner, emasculating an insecure Sid (her well-meaning anniversary gift to him of a cooking apron doesn't help). After years of struggling, they leave and spend 14 years in an unnamed city, where things are reliably bleak. His marriage on the rocks, Sid returns to Union County (Janet follows later, separately), where SUV-driving yuppies have scooped up cheap land and built luxury homes. Things, of course, end badly. Skipper's earthy prose helps paint a vivid picture of rough-hewn Appalachia, though the dialect can wear thin. This rocky romance will appeal to those who take it dark. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.