Rerelease of Scott McClanahan’s ‘Crapalachia’ Reopens Connection with Place https://ift.tt/7G3ROqW
Scott McClanahan’s Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place has been a staple of contemporary Appalachian literature since it was first published in 2013, and Two Dollar Radio’s New Classics edition is a perfect opportunity to revisit this brief yet powerful book. As Nico Walker puts it in the new introduction for this edition, “This book still hits.” Despite the crises and changes the world has faced since its original publication, Crapalachia still holds an uncanny ability to draw in readers, pulling us toward a distinctive place and time, to live among and alongside McClanahan’s young troublemakers and mischievous elders.
Sometimes characterized as fiction and sometimes as memoir, Crapalachia fully lives up to its subtitle. This biography of a place is told in first person by a character named Scott McClanahan, or a version of Scott McClanahan as he was growing up in Danese and Rainelle, West Virginia. The narrator’s close ties to his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, as well as his friendships with prank-call enthusiasts, lead to a wide range of seemingly episodic events. Whether he’s pouring a six pack into Nathan’s feeding tube or spending time with his friends, the narrator is characterizing what it can feel like to grow up in southern West Virginia, and readers from the region will likely think of their own high school classmates or even their past selves while reading.
The narrator’s friend Bill contributes to the book’s sense of place, as he talks often about the mountains, providing facts and details. The narrator says, “He was telling us about all of these places. He was telling us something important though. He was telling about where we were from. He was telling us about home.” Throughout the book, Bill repeats stories and facts, drawing attention to the features of the landscape and its history.
Though the book is not plot driven, the writing propels readers forward through Bill’s repetitions, along with sentence structure, phrasing and the overall structure of the work. Sometimes sentences incorporate chapter titles, making it feel almost impossible to stop reading, one chapter flowing into the next like the rivers referenced in the book. It’s as if we are just listening to a friend tell us about his life, and, thus, we hesitate to interrupt.
In addition to Bill, other unforgettable characters emerge. Grandma Ruby is a particular favorite, as she plays up various illnesses and ailments, eager for the attention and care that can come with being an elder in a mountain place. Early chapters that “shed light on her character” establish Ruby as a person who is unphased by some of life’s morbid moments. Her mischievous tone paired with her genuine care for her family are classic Appalachian grandma characteristics.
Similarly, Uncle Nathan’s cerebral palsy leaves him unable to talk, but the narrator, Ruby, and, later, Nathan’s caregiver, Rhonda, all seem able to understand him. Ruby continues to treat him as a child at times — dressing him in a teddy bear sweatshirt, for example — but Nathan attempts to enlist the narrator’s help with attracting women through newspaper ads and purchasing films that he hopes will contain nudity. The narrator claims to have never actually put the ad in the paper, and the appendix complicates Nathan’s role further. The appendix begins with a brief but somewhat confrontational paragraph, asking, “How do you know this appendix is true? Is it because I told you so?” Many entries in the appendix prompt readers to reimagine aspects of the narrative. Regarding Nathan, the appendix says, “I never poured beer down Nathan’s feeding tube. Ruby wouldn’t have stood for that. There was less freedom for Nathan than what was in this book. […] I let him drink the beer in this book because I wanted to give him a chance to be free for a moment. I wanted to give him a chance to enjoy something. This is the truth of my Nathan.”
Even before I became aware of this new edition, Crapalachia came up in conversation. Earlier this year, when I interviewed Mesha Maren about her new novel, Shae, we talked about novels, films or shows set in familiar places, and she specifically named McClanahan, saying, “When I got to the acknowledgements, he was thanking people who I knew personally.” I, too, recognized names in McClanahan’s “list of people I have ever loved.” Even if you do not know these people by name, I feel sure that you know them or people like them, and if not, McClanahan will introduce you.
NONFICTION Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place
By Scott McClanahan
Two Dollar Radio
Published October 15, 2024
Originally published: March 19, 2023 by Two Dollar Radio
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