The Height of Our Mountains: Nature Writing from Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley by Michael P.Branch and Daniel J. Philippon (review)

Abstract

Breece came from and his letters to his mother that fill the second half of the book are full of homesickness as well as the estrangement he felt at the changes that had taken place there. Douglass hints at placing Pancake's work in the context of other Appalachian writers, but could have done more with this. We know he read and lent out his copy of Chuck Kinder's Snakehunter, and we know he was friends with Mary Lee Settle and presumably knew her work-but we get no sense oftheir influence (if any) or that of Davis Grubb or of the book of Tom Kromer's stories he was editing. Pancake in turn has influenced such younger writers as Chris Offutt, Chris Holbrook, and Pinckney Benedict. At times Douglass is off-base (as are many others) who use the word "Appalachian" loosely and list such writers as Bobbie Ann Mason and Marsha Norman under this rubric. The second half ofthe book is a collection of Pancake's unpublished writing, mostly the letters to his mother-which add to our knowledge of the author. The letters are a bit of a chore to wade through, but ifone is interested in Pancake they have their rewards. And occasionally, like the unsent letter to his girlfriend Emily Miller or the late letter to his friend and teacher John Casey, they are loaded with intimations ofthings his suicide sheds light on in a new way. There are also the beginnings of a few stories and two sketches for a novel. A few newspaper portraits he had published are mentioned, but not included (one wonders if they might not have been more interesting than so many letters to his mother which have a tedious sameness to them). Pancake's suicide was not from lack of publication, for his work had been published in the Atlantic and editors in New York were soliciting stories as well as a novel. Ironically, two artists' colonies sent him letters unknowingly offering fellowships within days ofhis death. His small output has also been published in England and has been translated into German and Portuguese. Unfortunately, A Room Forever has its quota of typos. For example on page 112 there are two separate quotes from "Trilobites," each with its own annoying, easily found typos. But anyone interested in Pancake's work, which would mean anyone interested in contemporary Appalachian fiction, needs to read this book-both for what light it sheds on Pancake's work and for the peripheral issues his life and work have provoked. -Jonathan Greene Branch, Michael P., and Daniel J. Philippon. The Height ofOur Mountains : Nature Writing from Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1998. 448 pages. Hardcover $39.95. Paperback $18.95. 68 The attention given to nature writing in the past two decades has intensified dramatically, so much so that it now forms an increasingly distinct discipline ofliterary study. What once was the topic ofan occasional "special offerings" course is now the center of graduate concentrations and even programs. With this progression comes the creation of such works as Michael P. Branch and Daniel J. Philippon's The Height of Our Mountains. This anthology focuses on Virginia's Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley, drawing selections from seventy writers ranging from the colonial period to the present. That the work seeks an academic audience is immediately evident. Following a foreword by distinguished environmentalist John Elder, the editors present an extensive scholarly introduction putting forth a clear ideological statement of their approach to nature writing as a discipline. It succinctly sketches the academic considerations that customarily define the field and, in distinction, arranges the broadened boundaries for the editors' own choices. Most notably, they extend beyond that form most closely associated with nature writing, the personal essay, to include not only the more intuitive additions such as journals, discovery narratives, and travel writing, but even fictional works grounded in the region. In fact, the only exclusion based on genre is that all the works included are prose-and that with the admission that "regional nature poetry . . . could easily fill another volume." Given the fine geographical focus ofthe book, to...