Running on Red Dog Road
And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood
- 208 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
“Mining companies piled trash coal in a slag heap and set it ablaze. The coal burned up, but the slate didn’t. The heat turned it rose and orange and lavender. The dirt road I lived on was paved with that sharp-edged rock. We called it Red Dog. My grandmother always told me, ‘Don’t you go running on that Red Dog road.’ But oh, I did.”
Gypsies, faith-healers, moonshiners, and snake handlers weave through Drema’s childhood in 1940s Appalachia after Drema’s father is killed in the coal mines, her mother goes off to work as a Rosie the Riveter, and she is left in the care of devout Pentecostal grandparents. What follows is a spitfire of a memoir that reads like a novel with intrigue, sweeping emotion, and indisputable charm. Drema’s coming of age is colored by tent revivals with Grandpa, jitterbug lessons, and traveling carnivals, and though it all, she serves witness to a multi-generational family of saints and sinners whose lives defy the stereotypes. Just as she defies her own.
Running On Red Dog Road is proof that truth is stranger than fiction, especially when it comes to life and faith in an Appalachian childhood.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- A Note from the Author
- Prologue: In the Beginning . . .
- 1. I Come from Coal
- 2. Washed In the Blood
- 3. The Color of India Ink
- 4. Strung On Fine Wire
- 5. Forcing the Forsythia
- 6. A Hobo’s Prayer
- 7. The Spirit Is Willing
- 8. Only the Essence Remained
- 9. Mistook for a Haint
- 10. Most Call Me Tolly
- 11. Survivors Will Be Shot
- 12. A Handful of the Mountain
- 13. Lead a Horse to Water
- 14. A Gizzard On My Fork
- 15. Suffer the Little Children
- 16. The Flesh Is Weak
- 17. Ladies Don’t Sweat
- 18. Gypsy Skirt
- 19. Birds of a Feather
- 20. The Living and the Deaf
- 21. Lonely Hearts Club Man
- 22. There Be Dragons
- 23. Mr. Pursley’s World
- 24. The River Ran Cold
- 25. The Mountain Fell Away
- 26. All the Bells Were Ringing
- Epilogue: We Are Going Home . . .
- Acknowledgments