by Jolene McIlwain
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2023
256 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Paperback Original.
Publication Information
Set in the bruised, mined, and timbered hills of Appalachia in western Pennsylvania, Sidle Creek is a tender, truthful exploration of a small town and the people who live there, told by a brilliant new voice in fiction.
In Sidle Creek, McIlwain skillfully interrogates the myths and stereotypes of the mining, mill, and farming towns where she grew up. With stories that take place in diners and dive bars, town halls and bait shops, McIlwain's writing explores themes of class, work, health, and trauma, and the unexpected human connections of small, close-knit communities. All the while, the wild beauty of the natural world weaves its way in, a source of the town's livelihood – and vulnerable to natural resource exploitation.
With an alchemic blend of taut prose, gorgeous imagery, and deep sensitivity for all of the living beings within its pages, Sidle Creek will sit snugly on bookshelves between Annie Proulx, Joy Williams, and Louise Erdrich.
"[An] impressive debut collection spotlights the hard-edged people who call rural western Pennsylvania home...McIlwain's reverent regard for the natural world makes her a worthy successor of Annie Dillard." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Like fictional Sidle Creek, wandering through rural western Pennsylvania, McIlwain's stories wind through the same country, touching down in the lives of locals...McIlwain writes beautifully of the work that people do...illuminating human heartache..." —Kirkus Reviews
"Sidle Creek is a rare gem, a compelling blend of nature and humanity perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Daisy Johnson's Fen." —Shelf Awareness
"In a lesser writer's hands, Jolene Mcllwain's hardscrabble characters could become one-dimensional, stereotypic, but her empathy is such that we never doubt our kinship to them and their ultimate concerns. These stories are artfully constructed and the writing vivid and precise, often poetic but never pretentious. Sidle Creek is one of the best story collections I've read in a long time." —Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of Serena
"She can write. Not an easy story but a deeply satisfying one." —Dorothy Allison, author, Bastard Out of Carolina
"Welcome to the Pennsylvania of Jolene Mcllwain, a world of strip mines, cockfights, deer hunters, Rolling Rock beer, and a cast of characters as memorable as any from Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. Mcllwain's debut story collection, Sidle Creek, shimmers with the plain-spoken, and yet luminous, portrayals of its rural characters whose lives are made up of moments of grit and grace. How does she do it? How does she turn the ordinary into something magical, universal, and eternal? These are stories to savor for all they have to tell us about being alive." —Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Bright Forever
"Jolene McIlwain is a master of the vividly imagined natural world and of complicated characters, young and old. Meals burned and letters went unanswered as I waited to find out if the baby would survive, which boy would win the fight, whether the deer had escaped in these suspenseful stories. Sidle Creek is a marvellous debut." —Margot Livesey, author of The Boy in the Field
This information about Sidle Creek 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.
Jolene McIlwain's fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appeared in numerous literary journals, and in 2019's Best Small Fictions Anthology. Her work was named finalist for 2018's Best of the Net, Glimmer Train's and River Styx's contests, and was a semifinalist in Nimrod's Katherine Anne Porter Prize. She's taught literary theory/analysis at Duquesne and Chatham Universities and worked as a radiologic technologist before attending college (BS English, minor in sculpture, MA Literature). She was born, raised, and currently lives in a small town in the Appalachian plateau of Western Pennsylvania.
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