Working in Appalachia

This journal issue focuses on a variety of Appalachian occupations, particularly but not exclusively, coal mining. The lead article is an interview with John Sayles about his movie, "Matewan." Sayles sees the Matewan massacre as a great movie theme, "like a classic American Western...but with a difference--the violence was collective, and it was political." The afterword to Matewan, the Battle of Blair Mountain, is the subject of Denise Giardina's novel, "Storming Heaven." In an interview Giardina says, "I see coal as a curse." She envisions Appalachia without coal as Vermont or New Hampshire, clean and prosperous. The magazine also includes profiles of coal miners, a farmer, a rug hooker, and a shoeshine man; poetry about mining and Appalachia; and photos of past and contemporary Appalachian workers. An interview with a traditional farmer explores the place of the worker who resisted modernization because "hillside farming and all didn't suit a tractor." Films about novelist Harriet Simpson Arnow and the Banner Mine disaster, books about making "Matewan" and southern cotton mills, and television shows about the Mud Creek Clinic and the Frontier Nursing Service are reviewed. (DHP)