ONLINE: A Zoom invitation link will be sent one day before each class session begins.
Enrollment: Limited to 15 students. A waitlist will be available.
Texts:
Oral History ● Smith, Lee 1983 ● Berkley Press 2011 ● Kindle edition available.
Above the Waterfall ● Rash, Ron ● 2015 Ecco ● Kindle edition available.
Join Cecilia Donohue for a discussion of two novels in which North America’s oldest mountain chain serves as the backdrop. The first week will be dedicated to discussion of Lee Smith’s Oral History (1983), in which a student’s search for her roots spawns a multi-voiced narrative of the Cantrell family of Hoot Owl Holler. Week two will focus on Ron Rash’s Above the Waterfall (2015) as its principal characters negotiate the region’s social and ecological challenges of the 21st century. Cecilia Donohue retired in 2013 following a 25-year career of undergraduate instruction, graduate teaching, and academic administration. She now resides in rural Tennessee with her husband Bill and their menagerie of two horses, one cat, and one dog. Cecilia has written extensively on America’s southern authors and poets, notably Robert Penn Warren. She is currently an associate editor of The Steinbeck Review.
