SOURCE: Gray, Amy Tipton. “Fred Chappell's I Am One of You Forever: The Oneiros of Childhood Transformed.” In The Poetics of Appalachian Space, edited by Parks Lanier, Jr., pp. 28-39. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.

In the following essay, Gray examines “the universality of Chappell's work” by applying Gaston Bachelard's principles of phenomenology to I Am One of You Forever.

One of the most damaging charges brought against Appalachian writing is that it is merely the grandchild of the local-color movement dressed up and sent to college. Those who study Appalachian authors and their place in American letters devote much valuable time in repudiation of this charge, scattering the good seed of their conviction in the hope that some will fall on receptive ground instead of into the ubiquitous intellectual tares. It is especially ironic that the works of Fred Chappell, the most universal to arise out of...