Appalachian Genesis

Rating:
Summary: WONDERFULLY PRODUCED, ANECDOTALLY RICH
Review: I'm the author of five traditionally published books myself, so I know the amount of talent and sheer hard work it took to produce APPALACHIAN GENESIS. Also, Richard and I were starving writers together back in the 1980's, so I know it took him three years to research this book, another two to write and edit it, and then two and a half years waiting for it to be published. But it was worth every moment of his time, to we who profit from his incredible patience, eloquent style and demand for historical accuracy.
I came to hate history in high school, which I identified with dull teachers droning on about the industrial revolution or some such equally numbing subject. But Richard Fulgham has written an account that is fascinating throughout and imbuded with a poet's voice. Mountains burst upward toward the "astonished" sky and there are frequent eloquent lines like, "The future of the Children of the Sun darkened as their reverence dimmed".
He has made the Clinch River Valley and its large cast of characters come alive. The prose is wonderfully lucid. The imaginative leaps he makes in order to draw the reader into scenes feel right to me. The poet pulls it off, creating moments like the harrowing buring of Mrs. Moore and the bald terror of that line, "How strange, she must have thought, to be so cold in the midst of flames."
"Appalachian Genesis" is packed with drama and strange ironies. He has produced a great book, and knowing that, just holding it in his hands should sustain him. Richard and I are literary brothers. Across time and space, I shake his hand.

Rating:
Summary: Fire and Ice, Blood and Gore -- A Microcosm of America
Review: The story begins with catastrophe -- as the continent of Africa rams into North America, thrusting up the Appalachian Mountains, off which run the Clinch River . . . which carves a valley so rich and bountiful that it is fought over by (get this!) paleo-Indians, "Xulan Empire" Indians, Cherokee, Shawnee, Creek, Mingo, Spanish conquistadors, English explorers, Long-hunters, pioneers, French trappers, British Colonists, Tories, Patriots . . .
Wars were fought for possession of the Clinch Valley by the Xulans vs Conquistadors; Cherokee vs Shawnee; French & Indian vs the British; Native Americans vs Settlers; Militia vs Renegade Indian Tribes; Redcoats vs Overmountain Men . . . .
The book ends with the civilization (so-called) of the valley, marked by President Andrew Jackson's decree to round up all the Cherokee at bayonet point and march them to Oklahoma . . . killing 4000 of them along the way. It's a book every young American of every ethnic background should read -- not to mention everyone else. If you can see what happened in the Clinch Valley, you can see what happened in all America.
It's also beatutifully written: here's just a sample, where the author is speaking of the ice-age hunters of the Clinch.
"Certainly the Paleo-Indians were here in the Clinch river Valley when all was frozen and the icy air made their lungs rattle. Certainly at night they held their Clovis spears tight, huddled close around their campfires and together watched the blood-red, shining eyes -- perhaps of sabre-toothed cats -- watching them so ominously from just beyond the firelight. Certainly they gazed at the unchanging stars and wondered silently if there was not more to life than ambushing those massive ice-age beasts less clever than they." (p. 13)