"The Patron Saint Of Ugly" by Marie Manilla

This is a review of a book by Marie Manilla of Huntington, West Virginia which I wrote about ten years ago for submission to a magazine which ultimately went defunct at about the same time. The review was never published. I had recently had a question from a reader who identifed herself as "Ms. Teacher" who teaches in WV and was looking for books to use in her classes to promote knowledge of the state and it's culture and people. I had responded to her comment with a question, among others, as to whether or not she has used the works of Marie Manilla in her classes. I was reviewing some old storage devices today and realized that I ought to post this review here since I have never actually written about this wonderful book on this blog. I unreservedly recommend this book for any teacher in Appalachia to consider as text material in high school literature classes. In fact, this book was chosen in 2021 for the West Virginia One Book One Read Project by the WV Culture Center. I also wrote an article which was published on the Mildred Haun Review Journal website about this book in comparison with a classic old Appalachian collection of short storys by Mildred Haun called "The Hawk's Done Gone". Haun's book is also a masterpiece of Appalachian fiction and contains some of the best Appalachian dialect writing I have ever seen.That article can be found at this link but it doesn't have a direct link to each article so you have to go to the link and scroll to page 10 to find it. Thanks for the effort in advance! I also recommend the West Virgiinia Culture Center unreservedly as a place to take students of any age in the school systems of Appalachia on a day trip. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Patron Saint of Ugly Marie Manilla New York: Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin 2014 $13.95 (paperback, 334 pages) The Patron Saint of Ugly, Marie Manilla’s second novel and third published book is set in a dying fictional town called Sweetwater, WV. The protagonist is a young woman, Garnet Ferrari, who is being studied by the Vatican for possible sainthood due to her purported ability to heal those with afflictions which make them ugly to the rest of the world. Garnet is a member of an Italian American family whose members are just unique and noticeable enough to be my relatives or yours. Garnet’s body is covered with port wine birthmarks which constitute a map of the world and her personal cross to bear. The novel juxtaposes Catholics & Protestants, immigrants & native born, Irish & Italian, rich & poor, young & old, beautiful & ugly, Old & New Religion, and WV and the rest of the world. Manilla’s manner of dealing with these juxtapositions is reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor at her best. The novel won the Weatherford Award as best Appalachian Novel in 2015. The novel is presented as a series of audio tape transcriptions which Garnet is recording for the Vatican investigator sent to determine her legitimacy as a saint. They contain her autobiography and persistent denial of that sainthood as well as her deep seated desire to know that her Italian Catholic father loves her. Ms. Manilla leads us along a wonderfully wrought path from Sicily to Sweetwater that makes us all examine our own personal relationships, desires, ambitions, and flaws. Ms. Manilla’s rich sense of humor will give you a frequent chuckle and an occasional belly laugh along the way. While hundreds of supplicants travel to her door on Dagowop Hill in search of healing, Saint Garnet hides in her inherited mansion and seeks her own redemption from the highly personal demons which complicate her life along with her port wine map of the world. Along the way, Saint Garnet and the small circle of people who know, understand, and love her each suffer their own struggles. The novel introduces numerous characters all of us have known, or believe we knew. They are the familiars of all our lives, the loving and devoted grandmother, the struggling mother who deserves more, the despised and perverted cousin, the working class father who seeks to give a wonderful wife all she deserves, and the brilliant but misunderstood sibling. Ms. Manilla blends all these characters and themes into a wonderfully woven story which assists the reader in coming to self-knowledge and a fuller appreciation of her own flawed life and family. She also artfully kills off a few characters for the good of the story. For more than a hundred years, Appalachia and West Virginia have benefitted from the lives, works, and descendants of Italian American immigrants who came to perform the tasks which were too onerous or dangerous for those who persisted in the belief that they were too good, or smart, or rich, or valuable to perform those tasks. The Patron Saint of Ugly has now joined the ever growing list of such achievements from which we have all benefitted. Ms. Manilla utilizes skills learned in West Virginia and honed at the University of Iowa Creative Writing Program to create a masterful and memorable work which leaves the reader hoping for more from this group of characters and their creator. This book is a must read for the lover of Appalachia and Appalachian literature.

Random Thoughts On Having 100 Followers!

 

 

Sometime early this morning, April 12, 2020, this blog had its 100th person sign up to follow the blog and it only took nine years, almost to the day, from April 15, 2011, when I wrote and posted the initial blog post entitled "A Brief Introduction To My Appalachian Life".  I realize that neither nine years to achieve the milestone of 100 followers, or that number of followers themselves approaches anything like a record.  But I have been writing and posting more frequently and steadily for about three and a half years since I have retired from my full time occupation as a mental health and substance abuse therapist and my part time occupation over the last ten years as a self-employed auctioneer.  But I will say that 100 followers on any blog is above average and most bloggers and blogs never achieve that level.  It can be assumed that at some time over the last nine years that number of people have read something at least once on this blog which left them interested enough in my writing to try to come back and read more of it.  In the spirit of total honesty, I will also say that having 100 followers listed on any blog does not mean that all of those 100 people are actively reading the blog which they are reputed to be following.  Some of them might have died, decided they are no longer interested in that blog but are too lazy to delete it from their list of followed blogs, or they might have simply stopped reading anyone's blog. 

Roger D. Hicks & Loyal Jones, Photo by Candice M. Hicks

But I remember how long it took for this blog to achieve even fifty followers and that was most of these first nine years.  Over the last four years as I have written more steadily on the blog, I have seen a surge in followers which is also linked to the fact that I have also begun to more frequently post links to my posts on Facebook both on my own Facebook page and on several group pages devoted to some aspect of Appalachian Studies.  As the title clearly implies, the main focus of the blog is Appalachia and Appalachian Studies.  But over the last four years, I have also written more and more frequently about American politics.  I suspect that most of my followers are interested primarily in Appalachia and Appalachian Studies.  But I also believe that my political writing has attracted a few of the people over the last four years.  I also realize that some of both groups of followers are not particularly interested in the other aspect of the blog.  I know that some of my followers who are interested in Appalachian Studies might dislike my politics and my political writing.  Tough shit if you are one of those!  With the fate of the country I love lying in the hands of a Russian Owned TRAITOR, you can bet your ass I will continue to write about American politics, and I will continue to push for the indictment, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of that TRAITOR until the day one of us dies and I sincerely hope it is him because I would love to piss on his grave so long as he dies, as he should, in a federal prison cell after having been held legally responsible for his many crimes against this country, the remainder of the civilized world, and the entire human race.  I also know that an equal percentage of the followers who have joined this blog over the last four years because of my political writing wish I would stop wasting their time with more articles about Appalachia, the place of my birth, my education, my culture, and my life.  Tough shit if you are one of those!  I will never stop writing about Appalachia as long as my mind and my typing fingers work.  And since I follow at least one blog written by a woman who is a quadriplegic who must write with adaptive software using eye blinks, you can bet that I would not quit writing about Appalachia so long as I live.  I do sincerely hope that I can someday devote far less of my writing time to American politics. But that will not happen until we are blessed with an actual legally and duly elected president which I look forward to on January 20, 2021.  I hope all of you join me in supporting that effort to elect a president who has not committed TREASON in order to illegally occupy the White House.  If that happens, I will probably write very little about politics and most of you politically interested followers can smile and go home with peace in your heart which I am certain has been absent every day since January 20, 2017.  I realize that no matter who occupies the White House for the remainder of all our lives that there will be other crises which will crop up.  But you can bet your ass those crises will be much less stressful on us, less dangerous to the country, and far more quickly, ethically, morally, and legally dealt with when we have removed, via a legally conducted election, the current scourge from his TREASONOUS occupation of the White House.  

But I would like to thank each one of you who is actively following this blog for your interest in my work.  I know a few of you personally, some of whom I knew before I started this blog, and several I have come to know because of this blog.  I actually got to come to know one of my literary and Appalachian Studies heroes because of this blog.  I will always treasure the day the great Appalachian scholar Loyal Jones, the founder of the Appalachian Studies Program at Berea College left a message on my phone inviting me to lunch because he had read some of my work based on some of his work.  I also treasure the day Bill Best, another professor emeritus at Berea College and I became friends because we both write about and love Appalachia and despise the current illegal occupant of the White House.  Because of this blog, I have also come to know Frank Barnett and his sister, Mary Marguerite Barnett-Price, who along with me, grew up on the waters of Beaver Creek.  Frank is a noted expert, along with Bill Best, in the field of saving, preserving, and propagating heritage food crops in Appalachia.  They have taught me a lot about the crops my ancestors grew and I am appreciative of them both.  John D. Shelton and I connected because his wife is a descendant of a few of my common ancestors and John also agrees with most of my politics.  Jay Shuck was known to me for several years before I began this blog.  He and I have completed a graduate school program together and worked for the same institution for a few years.  Marie Manilla, a noted Appalachian author whose work I appreciate, decided to join this blog sometime after we were introduced by our friends Edwina Pendarvis and P. J. Laska, both of whom are noted Appalachian poets.  I do not know all of you followers but can rest assured that I appreciate your interest in my work.  If you are remotely interested in Appalachian Fiction, you might consider going to the section at the bottom of the front page of this blog which is labeled "Links To Other Sites About Appalachia" and read one or two of my fiction pieces on various websites around the country.  If you do that, always feel free to send me an e-mail with your honest opinions of that aspect of my writing.  Be honest!  I can take it.  My work has been rejected by experts and yet a few of them have enjoyed it.  

If you choose to continue to read this blog, know that I will always tell you the truth.  I will not lie to you either in print or to your face.  If you want to know my unvarnished opinion of anything or anybody, just ask me.  I will not wait to determine what you believe before I tell you.  I will answer you immediately based on my honest opinion and to the best of my knowledge.  You can take me at my word.  If you ever desire to contact me, feel free either on the comments section of the blog or on one of my listed e-mail addresses.  My telephone has never been unlisted and it will never be.  Call me if you feel the need.  Maybe we can have lunch together some day and actually learn if we like each other.  Once again, Thanks To All Of You who follow this blog.  

Photo of Freeway Carpets Marquee, El Paso, TX, photo by Roger D. Hicks

Mildred Haun Conference--Walters State College, Morristown, TN, February 2-3, 2018

The 2018 Mildred Haun Conference will take place at Walters State College in Morristown, TN, on February 2-3, 2018.  The featured author at this year's conference, in addition to Mildred Haun, will be Marie Manilla, whose work I have written about on this blog and also previously published a review of her novel, "T he Patron Saint Of Ugly", in the Appalachian magazine "Now And Then".  Marie Manilla is a native and current resident of Huntington, WV, and the great majority of all her published work focuses on Appalachia with just a wee bit based on Texas which she knows well.  Manilla is often the featured writer at conferences these days which focus on the literature of Appalachia and she well deserves that attention.  

The focus of the conference is titled "Who Tells Our Stories: History, Haints, and Happenings".  I apologize for the fact that I did not mention this conference on this blog before the submission deadline for papers and presentations had passed.  The conference staff are also establishing an online journal this year which will publish the best papers from the conference where they will be available for the foreseeable future.  I will be presenting a paper at the conference on Saturday afternoon, February 3, 2017.  That paper is titled "Mary Dorthula White and Saint Garnet: Saints Or...?"  The paper will examine similarities in and differences between two major female characters, one each of which was created by Haun and Manilla: Mary Dorthula White, the protagonist/narrator of Haun's book, "The Hawk's Done Gone" and Saint Garnet del Vulcano, the protagonist/narrator of Manilla's book, "The Patron Saint Of Ugly".  

If you have not read the work of either of these women, you should spend the money to alleviate that void in your knowledge of Appalachian Literature, especially Appalachian Literature by and about women.  Marie Manilla is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop which has furthered the education of Flannery O'Connor, John Irving, and Wallace Stegner.  It is arguably the best masters degree level creative writing program in the country.  Admission to this program in and of itself is a statement that the applicant has demonstrated talent well above the average. 

Mildred Haun was a 1937 masters degree graduate of Vanderbilt University under the well known writing professors John Crowe Ransom and Donald Davidson.  Haun only published one book of fiction, the aforesaid "The Hawk's Done Gone", which is one of the finest little books ever produced in the state of Tennessee.  She wrote the stories in the book during her writing classes and never sought to publish another book.  Her masters thesis "Cocke County Ballads And Songs" is widely considered one of the best collections and examinations of the folk songs of Appalachia ever assembled.  The book, "The Hawk's Done Gone", is a unique work in many ways.  It is an outstanding use of Appalachian dialect in a fictional setting.  The dialect used in the book is that of Cocke County Tennessee around the turn of the twentieth century at the time of Mildred Haun's childhood.  It is a shame that she never wrote and published more both in the fields of fiction and non-fiction.  The book also bridges the gap between the novel and a collection of short stories with a central narrator and protagonist in most of the stories and a central cast of recurring characters.  The book does have a rough time line which runs parallel to the narrator's life which further blurs the line between novel and short story collection.  It is a book well worth reading for many reasons.

I would love to see all of the regular readers of this blog at the conference.  I will also look forward to reading comments on this blog from those of you who have read or will read the works of both Haun and Manilla. 

"Still Life With Plums" by Marie Manilla--Book Review

Manilla, Marie 2010 Still Life With Plums (Morgantown, WV, Vandalia Press)

I just took a long, quiet drive across the West Virginia I have always loved courtesy of Marie Manilla, one of the Mountain State's finest writers.  This collection of short stories is set primarily in West Virginia with a bit of Texas thrown in for good measure.  But the author's primary setting, source of knowledge and folkways, and the home place of her heart is West Virginia, the West Virginia that is found in the lyrics to "The Green Rolling Hills Of West Virginia". 

"The green rolling hills of West Virginia
Are the nearest thing to heaven that I know
Though the times are sad and drear
And I cannot linger here
They'll keep me and never let me go."

That line "though the times are sad and drear and I cannot linger here they'll keep me and never let me go" personifies this book in many ways.  Several of the stories are set among times, places, families, and individuals who are "sad and drear".  But nearly every character in the book has learned the truth that West Virginia will "keep me and never let me go".  They have found the sources of both their pain and their pleasure in that sweet, dark, heart warming, shimmering green, and dreary land between the Ohio River and the headwaters of the Potomac.  Thanks to Ms. Manilla, these characters are generally able to resolve that pain and relish the pleasures of life.  As I read this book, I was reminded of the song writing of Dolly Parton in such songs as "Mountain Angel" and "These Old Bones". Marie Manilla has that same ability to reach into the soul of a flawed character who is generally not responsible for her flaws but found them at the hands of others.  

"Still Life With Plums" is a book to be read slowly, thoughtfully, and deeply.  These characters are real people that you and I have both known and often loved with a love that was deepened and strengthened by many shared mornings fueled on water gravy and a thin hoe cake.  These characters have a few too many patches on their britches and the cold winter winds blowing down the Guyandotte or the Gauley have cut right through their pea coats on the way to the mine, factory, or company store.  Marie Manilla understands West Virginia and her people as only one of their own can comprehend.  She creates characters out of the whole cloth of a life lived in that land built from secession, independence, and hardship.  These characters find connections, assistance, and subsistence among others like themselves, strong despite having been bowed, compassionate in addition to being tough, loving despite having been discarded, and proud Mountaineers in the face of all that history of having been discriminated against.  They are my people.  They are your people.  They are the people of Cabell, Wayne, and Summers Counties.  They are the people of the industrial and chemical river and the people of the log woods and coal fields.  They are people you should meet and come to know.  They are people you should take a long, quiet ride with across the green rolling hills of that beautiful, blessed paradise we call our mountain home. 

Kudzu Evening With Poets Hazard Community & Technical College April 28, 2016

WHERE WERE ALL THE STUDENTS???

Last night, April 28, 2016, my wife Candice and I traveled from our house in West Liberty, KY, to the Hazard Community And Technical College campus in Hazard, KY, for the 2016 version of Kudzu "Evening With Poets".  We went there primarily to see West Virginia author and University of Iowa Writer's Workshop alum Marie Manilla read.  I have become quite enamored of her work after having read her novel, "The Patron Saint Of Ugly" and beginning her short story collection called "Still Life With Plums".  Hazard is only about 65 miles from our house and for us that is a reasonable drive to see an event which interests us both.  Marie Manilla was one of five established women writers in Appalachia who were being featured at the reading.  All had been published in this years edition of Kudzu, the campus literary magazine of HCTC.  The other featured writers were Darnell Arnoult, Shawna Kay Rodenberg, Carrie Mullins, and Marianne Worthington.  All are established writers to one degree or another and all write well, one or two even better.

The evening was a positive event and the writing which was presented was well above average.  All of the aforementioned women have had numerous publications and most have at least one book in print.  This year's edition of "Kudzu" was a special edition focusing on women in Appalachia and achieved its goal.  The magazine also contained writing from Pauletta Hansel, the current and first Poet Laureate of Cincinnati, an alumnus of The Southern Appalachian Circuit Of Antioch College in Beckley, WV.  There was also an entry in the magazine from best selling author Silas House.  If the goal of the magazine was to prove that a "student" publication at a small community college in Eastern Kentucky could gain and publish submissions from older, established regional writers, it was a success.  But, from my point of view, the goal of every student publication at any college should be to publish, promote, and assist in the establishment of long lasting careers for current students who wish to become known as writers.  The edition of "Kudzu" did contain quite a few pieces of writing from current students.  But not a single student was featured as a reader at the event.  To that degree, the event was a failure.  

In my opinion, every literary magazine which purports to be a production of an undergraduate writing or English program should work to make it possible for students to believe they can become the person whose work is published.  Such magazines should work to help those students believe and be perceived as writers.  The way that is done is make the magazine a primarily student based work, as many Appalachian religious believers say, from "kiver to kiver".  Students should be featured at readings, public presentations, and events related to the release of the magazine.  During the course of the evening, I met one young woman who identified herself as a student in a public speaking class who was attending the event for that class.  I saw one introduction of the student who won a "Kudzu" prize for student writers.  That student did not read at the event.  I did see several students serving soft drinks, water, and cookies.  One was sitting at a cash register selling "Kudzu" and the works of the established writers.  And, yes, I did buy copies of both the 2016 and 2015 issues of "Kudzu" as well as a collection of work by one of the established writers.  

I enjoyed the reading.  All of the women who were featured have earned their recognition with years of dedication to their craft.  All of them deserve to be published, regularly, often, and in as many venues as possible.  I do not say anything about this event in order to negatively assess any of the women who were featured.  I was enriched by their presentations.  However, I firmly believe that a "student" magazine should focus on helping students, in every way possible, to become recognized writers and being allowed to read at an event introducing a magazine which contained their work would have been a serious step in that direction.  

I can remember when "Kudzu" was introduced many years ago as a photocopied and stapled collection of work which was nearly all by students.  "Kudzu" is now a fairly slickly produced and presented magazine of quality work.  "Kudzu" has come a long way and I applaud that progress.  But, at the end of a two year community college education, how many of the students who worked to help produce that magazine will have  become recognized as writers to the degree their work deserves?  I suspect that number will be significantly lower than it might if those student writers were allowed and required to stand in front of a crowd and read their  work with a copy of  a magazine in their hands which contained that work, both literary and physical, along with their blood, sweat, and tears gained from producing that magazine.  Where were all the students???