Author Laura Jackson explores West Virginia with wit and charm in her debut book.
WEST VIRGINIA, AS WE ALL KNOW, IS FULL OF COMPLEXITIES. And no one captures them better than environmental writer, humorist, and West Virginia daughter Laura Jackson and her book, Deep & Wild: On Mountains, Opossums & Finding Your Way in West Virginia.
In this series of essays covering topics from brown dogs to John Denver to the city of Richwood, Jackson grapples with her own ideas of the Mountain State, the perceptions of those outside it, and what it really means to be from here. She grabs the stereotypes and the well-intended advice and the creeping doubts with mountain-roughed hands, holds them out the car window on our winding country roads—through the quiet hollers and bustling cities of our people—and says, “Look. I get where you’re coming from, but look harder. Breathe it in. Feel it. This is us, too,” all with humor, tough love, and wisdom grown in the mountains and smoothed by its streams. Just don’t ask her to catch a crawfish.
Order a copy of Deep & Wild at autumnhouse.org/deep-wild.
READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S WINTER 2024 ISSUE
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