Crapalachia

  • Crapalachia is both an homage and a eulogy for a place where, through the sorcery of McClanahan's storytelling, we can all pull up a chair and find ourselves at.
  • Crapalachia is a coming of age story about a boy growing up in rural West Virginia under the aegis of his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan.
  • CRAPALACHIA.

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    Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place

    "Scott McClanahan is one of those rare writers who achieves Kafka's credo that a book should be the axe that shatters the icy soul of our interior. Crapalachia, with its tongue-in-cheek title, is anything but refuse and detritus. In fact, it's a broken and half-sung ode to place and people and history, a personal reclamation of falsehoods cast on rural communities in West Virginia."

    --Ocean Vuong, LitHub

    Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place is a portrait of Scott McClanahan's formative years, coming of age in rural West Virginia, during a stretch of time where he was deeply influenced by his Grandma Ruby and Uncle Nathan, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Peopled by colorful characters and their stories, Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana. Beyond the artistry, there is an optimism, a genuine love for people and the past and

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    Publisher Description

    "McClanahan's prose is miasmic, dizzying, repetitive. A rushing river of words that reflects the chaos and humanity of the place from which he hails. [McClanahan] aims to lasso the måne He fryst vatten not a writer of half-measures. The man has purpose. This is his symphony, every note designed to ekon, to linger."
    —New York Times Book Review

    "Crapalachia is the genuine article: intelligent, atmospheric, raucously funny and utterly wrenching. McClanahan joins Daniel Woodrell and Tom Franklin as a master historieberättare of backwoods rural America."
    —The Washington Post

    "The book that took Scott McClanahan from indie cult writer to critical älskling is a series of tales that read like an Appalachian Proust all doped up on sugary soft drinks, and has made a fan of everybody who has opened it up."
    —Flavorwire

    "McClanahan’s deep loyalty to his place and his people gives his story wings: 'So now I put the dirt from my hom

  • crapalachia

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    Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place
    by Scott McClanahan
    Two Dollar Radio, March
    pages / $16  Buy from Amazon or Two Dollar Radio

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    To me Rainelle, West Virginia is synonymous with snow days. When I was growing up on Muddy Creek Mountain outside Alderson, listening to early morning school cancelations on The Big Dawg In Country, it seemed like the kids in Rainelle always got the day off.  Rainelle was in the same county as the town I went to school in but it lay just far north enough to ensure that it got an icing thick layer of snow on days when we got only dustings. As I walked to meet the school bus I thought about all those lucky-son-of-a-bitch kids in Rainelle at home in their pajamas watching T.V.

    Rainelle is the hometown of Scott McClanahan and though I have never met him, part of the magic that McClanahan weaves into all of his writing is his ability to make you feel that you have known him all your life.

    Rainell