The Homegoing: A Novel (Appalachian Writing) - Softcover

Olin-Hitt, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933964588 ISBN 13: 9781933964584

Publisher: Bottom Dog Press, 2012

Synopsis

The HOMEGOING is a reluctant trip back to a time and place we may remember, but would prefer to forget, only to find that what is most longed for is waiting there. Ruthie Sherman has made it out. She's shaken off all that she detested back home in the tiny foothill town where she grew up. A summer visit to Laurelville makes it clear, however, that the dysfunctional family, restrictive religion, and unshakable country speech still cling to her like mud from Laurel Creek. Curiosity about the suspicious death of her aunt Hannah eighteen months before Ruthie's birth, leads her through a town alive with whispers, to hills filled with dark secrets. Dartha, Ruthie's dreaded, faith-healing, herbalist grandmother, has secrets of her own, yet yearns for Ruthie's approval and, in the end, her own homegoing.

--Christina Lovin, Eastern Kentucky University, is the author of What We Burned for Warmth and Little Fires.

About this title

Book Description:

In Laurelville, Ohio--a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians--nobody knows why Hannah Marshal drowned in Laurel Creek in 1937. But twenty-three years later, her niece, Ruth Sherman, takes it upon herself to find out. With only a few rumors, old newspapers clipping and even some ghost stories about her aunt, Ruth begins to uncover the events surrounding Hannah's death. Ruth dismisses the ghost stories, but she knows all about being haunted by Hannah Marshal. Born eighteen months after Hannah's death, Ruth grows up feeling she is Hannah's replacement.

Every major event of her life is heavy with her aunt's memory. Ruth hears that she looks like Hannah, acts like Hannah,and many people even call her Hannah. Ruth is a walking reminder of her aunt, a living ghost of a person dead more than a year before her own birth. During the summer of 1960, when Ruth is twenty-one years old, she is pressed by her grandmother to learn the folk cures and healing rituals of Appalachian Christianity. Certain that she is finally being compelled to replace her Aunt Hannah, Ruth decides to discover once and for all the truth around Hannah Marshal's death. Ruth finds herself on a journey into the past, the traditions of a southern-Ohio Pentecostal church, and the shadowy side of the Holy Ghost among serpent handlers. On the journey, Ruth discovers her own spiritual gifts and uncovers the unspoken shame in her family.|The Homegoing: A Novel by Michael Olin-Hitt

About the Author:

Michael Olin-Hitt is Professor of English at the University of Mount Union, where he teaches creative writing, American Literature, and Native American Literature. He has published numerous short stories in literary journals in addition to two books: The Word of God Upon My Lips and A Fish Made of Water. THE HOMEGOING is his first novel. He lives in Green, Ohio with his wife and two children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bottom Dog Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1933964588
• ISBN 13: 9781933964584
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180