Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2016
208 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
Discovered as a typewritten manuscript only after her death in 2006, Family of Earth allows us to see into the young mind of author and Appalachian native Wilma Dykeman (1920–2006), who would become one of the American South's most prolific and storied writers.
Focusing on her childhood in Buncombe County, Dykeman reveals a perceptive and sophisticated understanding of human nature, the environment, and social justice. And yet, for her words' remarkable polish, her voice still resonates as raw and vital. Against the backdrop of early twentieth-century life in Asheville, she chronicles the touching, at times harrowing, story of her family's fortunes, plotting their rise and fall in uncertain economic times and ending with her father's sudden death in 1934 when she was fourteen years old.
Featuring a new foreword by fellow North Carolinian Robert Morgan, Family of Earth stands as a new major literary work by a groundbreaking author.
"Starred Review. A captivating, poetic, difficult-to-categorize book that abundantly showcases the author's talent for making words dance. Anyone who has lived in the countryside, or wished they had, will enjoy Dykeman's celebration of nature." - Kirkus
"A gorgeous meditation on Dykeman's memories of home." - Wiley Cash, author of This Dark Road to Mercy
"Family of Earth is a valuable addition to understanding Dykeman and her later work, but it is also a fascinating, deeply moving account of a writer's developing sensibility." - Ron Rash, author of Above the Waterfall
"Family of Earth is a revelation; here is a little poet, an only child raised in relative isolation who knew her parents as friends, who lived and breathed the mountains and the whole natural world around her - this extraordinary childhood clearly informed the woman she would become, what she would do and write." - Lee Smith, author of Dimestore: A Writer's Life
This information about Family of Earth was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Wilma Dykeman was a novelist, historian, journalist, educator, speaker, and environmentalist who pioneered in the areas of water pollution, civil rights, oral history, Appalachian Studies, and the empowerment of women.
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