SOURCE: High, Ellesa Clay. “A Lost Generation: The Appalachia of Breece D'J Pancake.” Appalachian Journal 13, no. 1 (fall 1985): 34-40.

In the following essay, High investigates the role of kinship in Pancake's short stories.

Where do we go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of pain. 

—T. S. Eliot

Country roads, take me home To the place I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Momma, Take me home, country roads. 

—John Denver

The fine old Appalachian institution of “kinship” extends far beyond the nuclear family, embracing ranks of ancestors as well as a network of living relatives (often generically referred to as “cousins”) which links hollow to hollow, town to town. The Appalachian family's affinity to place is also an affinity for one another; it's not surprising to find Alex Haley, that famous tracker of roots, currently researching a book there. The term “oral history” itself resonates with...