West Virginia University Director of New Media John Antonik discusses his new book "Roll out the Carpet". This book takes a look back at the history of WVU's Basketball team and features over 500 never before published pictures. Learn more about this title Here
Sandy Baldwin, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Literary Computing at WVU, talks about our upcoming title Regards Croisés: Perspectives on Digital Literature. Find out more about this title here.
Lee Maynard's reading of his novel The Pale Light of Sunset at the West Virginia Book Festival. Learn more and purchase this book Here.
Learn more about Lee Maynard and his writing process.
Watch Part Two and Part Three of this reading.
Lee Maynard's reading of his novel The Pale Light of Sunset at the West Virginia Book Festival. Learn more and purchase this book Here.
Learn more about Lee Maynard and his writing process.
Watch Part One and Part Three of this reading.
The title of your book, A Strike Like No Other Strike, proclaims the Pittson Coal Strike was unique. What is it that makes this particular strike so unusual?
My concerns in writing the book were about the legal aspects of the case. My concern was to write a book about resistance to law, which is something I’ve long been interested in. I think what is distinctive about the Pittson Strike is the organization of the resistance by the United Mine Workers; the large number of arrests, the large number of acts of anonymous violence, the amount of litigation and the legal penalties which were later retracted. All of those kind of made it a unique strike. Of course the phrase “a strike like no other strike” actually comes from the transcripts of one of the trials, and was stated by one of the miners who later went on to become a politician.
Do you think today there could be strike of this proportion?
I don’t think so in the coal industry. I think it’s questionable whether one could occur in many areas of America because unions have been under such tremendous attack by the political right that they have lost a lot of authority in America. Compared to where unions were 70 years ago, unions have far less power.
What caused the Pittson Coal Strike?
Well the strike was actually caused by the fact the contract had expired between Pittson and the UNWA. During negotiations on a new contract the company undertook some actions that affected widows, survivors, and retirees largely as a measure to force the union to accept what the union regards as a less than satisfactory contract.
During your extensive research for the book you interviewed several strikers and widows. Are there any particular interviews that stand out in your mind and why?
I interviewed dozens and dozens of people. Some of them were just brief conversations with people in informal settings and there were some people I talked to for some five to six hours. I think one interview that really struck me was when I interviewed a gentleman, a former miner, who had been a pretty active participant in the strike along with one of his friends. He had black lung and every five minutes or so he had to take a break to get his oxygen. These two guys had actually collected and taped on VHS tapes every newscast of coverage of the strike. I sat in the living room of this house and it was just amazing to watch with them because certain people from the coal company would come onto the screen and they’d shout out “BOOOO” or something like that.
Another man I interviewed, I offered to come to his house but we met at a motel I was staying at. He came by and I looked out and said to myself, “Oh my gosh, there is a guy with one leg coming.” That’s pretty scary. You know that’s pretty upsetting. He had lost his leg in a mining disaster.
Is there any particular message you want your audience to take away from the book, one main point?
My basic lesson is one of broad theory, not about coal strikes. It’s about what happens when people resist the law. What I’m interested in from a scholarly perspective is whether resisting or opposing the law can really change their lives or change the world. You know it’s kind of a mixed bag, mine is just a case study of one instance. I think what we don’t know enough about is litigation, you know the strike lead to a lot of litigation, and whether or not the law can help or impede social change. There is also a hypothesis that says “the law favors the ‘haves’ over the ‘have not’s.” I think the question is to what degree can people use the law, particularly if they’re “have not’s,” to better themselves. The question is whether or not it’s through the courts that change can occur or whether the courts can impede it. I decided to take a case that was really quite different from the standard civil liberties cases, like the rights of women or racial minorities, and take a look at it in a different context.
In the first chapter, you emphasize the book is not merely a historic account but a “tale” and you compare it to the tale of Robin Hood. Can you elaborate on this comparison?
Yes, what I’m trying to get at is a tale of resistance to authority. It’s also not a standard history and I tried to focus on the legal aspects. What I wanted to get at was the way law plays a role during conflicts and the way which law deals with situations in which people are unhappy with their circumstances.
Since the original release of the book ten years ago what have you been working on? What can we expect to see from you in the future?
For a long time I’ve been involved in two or three things. I’m still writing a little on resistance to the law and I’ve got a piece coming out. I’ve long been involved in the West Virginia Politics Book as a co-author and after the strike book we did a second edition which took up a great deal of my time. I’ve done a little work on censorship and also work on non-enforcement of the law, particularly animal-law and why most animal-laws aren’t enforced.
Is there one thing you’ve learned personally from the experience of researching and writing the story of the Pittson Coal Strike?
I think we fail to recognize sometimes how hard life can be for working class America. We sit here in these nice, well semi-nice offices, and it’s a nice clean job. I think too many Americans, particularly in the business management community forget, and maybe it's revealed by these TV shows like Undercover Boss, they really don’t realize how hard these people work and how tough it can be. There is a lack of understanding of how hard it is for some people in “dirty jobs.”
Did you set out writing this novel with an outline or did the story unfold as you went?
The novel grew out of a short story entitled “Escapee,” which first appeared in the Beloit Fiction Journal and subsequently, as the title story of my first book. I never work with an outline. My fiction, rather, pursues a character or characters in a situation, trying to discover where it will lead. Once the characters are in place, so to speak, I try, as Andre DuBus said, simply to “follow them home.”
Is the river described the New River Gorge, but with a different name? Or is the setting completely fictionalized?
Not the New River Gorge, though I live along the banks of the New River elsewhere. The setting is a patchwork quilt of bits and pieces of very real places in the Appalachians of southwestern Virginia, stitched into a completely imaginary place. As the poet Marianne Moore said, it’s “an imaginary garden with real toads in it.”
Would you describe yourself as a novelist, poet, essayist?
I’ve published poems and essays, true, but I think I’d describe myself primarily as a “fiction writer” for now. When I publish a second novel, then we can say I’m a “novelist.”
Describe the intimacy you feel when out in the water.
“When out in the water,” as you say, I step “out of my head.” I like it there.
Describe the feeling when you knew you were done.
I felt the need to drink a lot of beer and sleep a lot.
Did you plan on having gender play a prominent role or did that just occur?
The tweaking of stereotypical gender roles was overtly conscious only in terms of the initial conception to make the central character a fisher woman—as the book says, in “a place where a woman just goddamned wasn’t supposed to be.” The juxtaposition of contrasting elements is what makes for dramatic conflict, after all. And I’d have to confess that I was consciously determined that the central women in the novel, Sandy and Margie, would resolve things on their own terms and would most certainly not be “rescued” by men. But beyond that, the gender issues, so to speak, in the novel grow out of paying attention to the development of these two women as they are. I’ve known plenty of women with the sort of relentless and independent determination you can see in Sandy and Margie—and they’re the sorts of women I’ve always been drawn to. Simple, but true.
What were the difficulties you came across writing from a woman’s point of view?
It’s not so difficult if you pay attention to the women around you (and I have), and if you don’t presume to speak for women, in general, but rather to bring these particular women to life. One of the great transgressions a writer can commit is, as Foucault said, “the indignity of speaking for others.” I try to remember that—and just tell the story as it needs to be told.
Did you ever have the experience of showing a passage of this story to your wife/another female and her being like “rewrite this: a woman would not say this/act in this way.”
A couple of times.
Do you see a female audience for this novel or do you think a male and female audience would benefit?
There’s an obvious hook for a female audience, given the protagonist and situation of the novel, but I’d certainly hope it would appeal to both—it should—it has so far.
What book signings do you have scheduled in the near future?
Nothing specific scheduled right now until the West Virginia Book Festival in October.
What workshops will you be teaching?
I’ll be teaching at Wildacres Writers Workshop, along with Ron Rash, Ann Hood, and others, in North Carolina (July 3-10).
Do you have any projects in the works? If so, please describe.
Yes, new work is in progress. Sorry—I never discuss work in progress. Not trying to be coy or snotty—it’s just a quirk of mine—like a sports superstition—don’t want to jinx it.
What are your future plans?
I’m an English professor, a fiction writer, and a fisherman—it’s what I am—can’t help it. Ain’t nothin’ changin’.
David H. Sutton is a native of Helvetia, West Virginia. He received his bachelor's degree from Davis & Elkins College and Masters in History from West Virginia University. He currently makes his home in New Hampshire.
As a native of Helvetia, how did your authoring the history of your hometown affect your perceptions of heritage?
I had been steeped in the Swiss German heritage since I was a child, but the research really put it in context for me and gave me the bigger picture. I became very aware of how difficult and dangerous the 19th Century Atlantic migration had been for many immigrants and how strong and determined my ancestors had been. I also had a first-hand experience of the Americanization process and how that affects the perception and understanding of one's ethnic heritage.
What motivated you to compose such an exhaustive treatment of your hometown?
It began as a "simple" oral history project, hoping to save the memories of a generation of older Helvetians in the 1980s. However, as I got into it, I became very excited, not only by people's enthusiasm, but by the photographs and written records that were surfacing. One thing led to another until finally 10 years later we had the first edition of the community history weaving together all the research up to that point.
How did your background in historical study affect the way you approached the topic?
I approached the topic not just as a historian, but as a sociologist which was my under-graduate training. I wanted to know not just what happened, but why and what it meant to the people living during that time. I wanted to know what made this community of Swiss German immigrants tick, what their experience was.... how they completely recreated their lives in a foreign land. It was really fun!
What broader historical contexts does Helvetia, as a micro-history, most connect with?
The broader context is the Great Atlantic Migration of the 19th century, and then more specifically, Swiss immigration to the States and to the Appalachian region.
What research materials did you collect and study while writing?
I collected everything I could get my hands on from family photos, oral history accounts, written records, and even Swiss documents. I learned German and spent a summer in Switzerland researching the archives there. Lots of good stuff turned up.
How long did it take for you research and write Helvetia?
From start to finish it was about 10 years. That included grad school and writing my MA thesis on Helvetia.
What difficulties did you encounter during the writing process?
I had collected so much the biggest task was condensing and weaving the material into a coherent, readable narrative. At this point, c. 1984, I had no computer and was typing the text on a small, home typewriter. It seems archaic now!
What satisfaction have you derived from addressing such a personal topic?
There have been many satisfactions. Helvetia is a unique and interesting community worthy of having its story told in detail and with accuracy. It was truly a piece of community service for me. Seeing how all these families I knew as a child wove into the tapestry of this little town was fascinating and often nostalgic. To have a lasting record of all that is very satisfying to me.
Do you have any other projects in the works?
No new projects, but this one feels very complete!
In Still Life With Plums you weave together the stories of Latinos, West Virginians, and Texans. What common thread do these groups share, or what connection do they have? Is there a main theme or message you would like your readers to take away from Still Life With Plums?
I grew up in West Virginia when the state was not very culturally diverse. After college I moved to Houston for seven years and it was there I discovered striking similarities between Texans and mountaineers: our staunch individualism, our self-reliance, our suspicion of outsiders. I was also introduced to the food, music, and literature of the Latino culture. The Latinos I met were often at the bottom of the pecking order, the butt of jokes for their low economic status, poor job opportunities, and accents—something West Virginians have also been enduring for far too long. One overarching theme in the collection is that whatever culture we’re from, we are more alike than we are different.
Why did you decide to tell the characters' tales as a collection of short stories instead of a novel? What do you like about writing short stories compared to writing novels?
For a long time I considered myself first and foremost a short story writer. As a reader I was drawn to those pivotal moments in characters’ lives that would forever change them for better or worse. As a writer I wanted to find and capture those moments and the result is this collection. I have since gravitated to the novel where I have the luxury of creating entire worlds. I still love the driving pulse of a good short story, though, that satisfying burst of adrenaline and truth that the well-written story can produce.
Do any of the characters in the book reflect personal experiences? Which character reflects your story the most?
In one way or another all of the characters are me. Like most people I can be a smart-aleck or kind, naïve or cruel. I strive to create fully realized characters who are both sinners and saints. I have also tried to capture the love-hate relationship many of us have with West Virginia. We can feel pride and shame simultaneously because we love our landscape and generous spirits, but we cannot deny our poverty, our tendency to rank poorly on so many, many national lists. Some of us have bought into the Appalachian punch lines and want nothing more than to flee the state, like the characters in “The Wife you Wanted” and “Get Ready.” I have been those women. I have also been the male characters trying desperately to hold onto relationships that are already over, or running away from commitments, or trying to bend someone’s will to my own. As a childless person I also grapple with the issue of parenthood. Some of my characters long for children, some of them don’t; some of them never should have been parents at all.
Where did inspiration for the Latino stories come from?
I was a graphic artist in Houston and the woman who cleaned our building was from Central America. Though she had been a school teacher and her husband had been a dentist, both were doing unskilled labor in the United States because their home country was war-torn and unsafe. Her story fascinated and saddened me. She was the impetus for “Amnesty” about a Guatemalan Civil War widow and her disappeared family. I am also a history nut and “Crystal City” is about a Japanese Latin American woman from Peru whose family was sent to an internment camp in Texas during WWII. One of the highlights of my writing career is that after that story was published in The Chicago Tribune, I got a phone call from a German man who had been held in Crystal City as a teenager. He’d read the story and wanted me to know that it rang true.
The short story “Still Life With Plums” is also the book's title. How does this story stand apart from pieces you have written in the past?
“Still Life with Plums,” my most recently completed story, exudes my current writing mantra borrowed from Julia Child: “Don’t be afraid!” Writers have to be fearless and honest, and my favorite authors are also playful rule-breakers. In this story about a has-been, blocked-up writer, I felt much more relaxed and open to playful language and serendipitous metaphors that are all around us if we only open our eyes and have the cojones-ovaries to commit them to paper. The story was also an opportunity to poke a stick at the high-brow snotty literati who can be so closed-door, particularly to writers from Appalachia even if our themes aren’t strictly Appalachian. I have seen so many excellent writers buckle under the weight of all those rejections.
Did you learn anything about yourself while writing this collection? How have you grown as a writer?
Writing helps me make sense of the world. When I write about racists or predators, folks who are obsessive-compulsive or Guatemalan refugees, it’s an opportunity to slip into their skin and experience their lives for awhile. Particularly with the unsavory characters, I often wind up with at least a portion of empathy regardless of their actions because I begin to understand what makes them tick.
What can we expect to see from you in the future?
I am just finishing a novel called The Patron Saint of Ugly about a woman who may or may not be the descendant of a 16th-century Italian saint, and she may or may not be able to perform miracles. I’ve tried to channel two of my favorite magical-realism writers, Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. Patron Saint is filled with odd artifacts like 60 Minutes transcripts, screenplay snippets, maps, holy cards, covers of underground newspapers, the family Coat of Arms—all written or drawn by me, which means I’ve been chanting my new favorite mantra like a maniac: “Don’t be afraid!”
In addition, my novel Shrapnel, which won the Fred Bonnie Award for best first novel, will be available soon from River City Publishing. Shrapnel explores the legacy of war (specifically WWII, Vietnam, and the War in Iraq) in three generations of the same family. The main character, Bing Butler, a retired (and very conservative) veteran from Texas, moves in with his liberal, antiwar daughter in West Virginia. Bing’s head is filled with many of the stereotypes outsiders hold about us, but by the novel’s end most of them have been shattered. He also finds himself pining for the melodic Spanish language that he used to roll his eyes over back in Texas. Like my own experience in Houston, Bing begins to understand that regardless of geography, humans have much more in common than one might think.
What do you hope your audience will take away from this work?
A good appreciation of the history of East Africa and also a good appreciation of where East African countries are at present - the difficulties and challenges facing these countries, as a result of past economical and political challenges.
Tell me about the time you spent in East Africa.
I have spent a lot of time in East Africa. My first experience was in 1961, at Makerere College (now University) in Kampala, Uganda. My main area of study was East African education, but I sat in for history and geography classes as well. This was undertaken as part of the training for the first Teachers for East Africa Program. I was then posted as an Education Officer for the government of Kenya, serving as a high school teacher (history, English, geography, Swahili). I held that profession for three years, then went back to the U.S for graduate school. I was in Kenya primarily from 1968-1969 for research on my dissertation, then I would go back for varying amounts of time for research from 1978-1979, 1989-1990. I have had three periods since then which allowed me to carry out research as a visiting professor at Moi University.
What are your reasons for continuing to revisit the people and history of this region?
It is my area of expertise. I have been employed by the taxpayers of West Virginia to be an expert on that area - that may sounds facetious, but it’s an area of interest to me. I am particularly interested in the history of Kenya. A number of graduates from our program focused on East Africa for their concentrations, so my many visits helps to keep me up-to-date.
Why Kenya?
The fact that it is a fascinating country. I am interested in the continued problems and challenges the country faces as a product of past history. I also have family ties - my wife is Kenyan, so there are family connections
Describe the research that went into this book.
This is the third edition of the book, so it has been long researched. I've been teaching East African classes that we first introduced in 1973. In doing that, there was a necessity to research the history of the country. I based or started my research on what I used in class for a number of years, then reading into the varying aspects of the history meant looking at the relevant secondary books and, particularly, archaeology journals of their early history. I then used my own history of their colonial periods, because that's what I concentrated in. I looked at a lot of secondary sources and primary sources that I used in my own research, like the archives in Kenya and Great Britain.
What sets this edition apart from the other two?
We have added additional material to bring a better account of events up through the first decade of the twenty-first century. We added and altered a good deal of material having to do with the early history of the East African region. This was necessary because of the changing archaeological records. We have to depend a lot on recent archaeological findings and their interpretation. I was concerned about revising certain parts of the book that I felt needed to be updated, because of my own research.
What frustrations go into writing historical nonfiction?
The question of trying to get everything right for a textbook is frustrating. It is very important to not have factual errors creep in. There is also always the problem of wanting to write more then would be feasible in a relatively short textbook. We can’t include everything, so we have to make decisions about what is really important and interesting, and then, what can we really do without.
What is rewarding about writing historical fiction?
I think getting a story that can be relatively easy to read, as well as a good background and introduction to the history of the region, is always a satisfaction for the historian. It becomes a challenge to meet all those goals - to write something that is readable and easy to understand, as well as appealing to the specialists.
Describe the feeling of being honored with having the Robert M. Maxon Graduate Scholarship in Modern African History named after you?
I appreciate the thoughts of my colleagues, who were influential in the history department, to have that honor set up. It is very much a testament to the graduate students that completed PhDs in the African history - their success in the positions they have today and their publications that made our program so well known.
What difficulties arose when including all the maps in the textbook?
I got a lot of help from the specialist in the geography department. Professor Kenneth Martis supervised it. I was very pleased with how the maps came out. They were quite accurate, which is a positive thing about the book and sets it apart from other histories of East Africa
How long did it take to complete this manuscript, from conception?
The original depth took about four or five months to put together, but it’s been revised for the first edition, the second edition, and the third, so each of those books took a month or two to focus on. The original I had worked on extensively during one of my sabbaticals, and was able to take advantage of being in east Africa, which helped me access a lot of the sources that were more difficult to obtain in the U.S.
Why is this book more valuable to a student of history than another title that covers its topic?
Well, because it is based upon thorough and very up-to-date research, as well as adopting more the perspective of the peoples of East Africa then some of the other previous books, which have been written more from an outsider's perspective. The maps are a strong positive. Another strength is the basic adopted terminology and spelling in the book is very relative to the people of East Africa.
Do you have any projects coming up?
Right now, I am trying to finish some contributions to the third edition of the Historical Dictionary of Kenya - I am one of the authors. I was coauthor of the second edition as well, and now we are moving to the third edition. I am also writing a foreword to a new book,The Economic History of Kenya, which will come out later this year or next year. I am working on a book that I hope to get finished fairly soon that focuses on the evolution of the Independence Constitution for Kenya, covering the periods of 1961-1963.
Do you have any travel plans coming up?
I hope to travel to Kenya by the end of the year. I have a lot of projects I’m starting that I have to go there to do some research for. It’s the story of a famous murder case that occurred in 1959-60 in Kenya.
