Homesick Hallelujahs

Homesick Hallelujahs explores the complexities of southern life. What begins as a bildungsroman of a young, lower-class Tennessean soon evolves into an exploration of southern culture and values, a journey across what is real and what is hoped-for in the lives of Appalachian southerners, and an exploding of themes that show up along the way. Racial tensions, religion and the lack thereof, the escape from the mundane that literature provides, identity politics, America\u27s deep and divisive history--all of these things come to the forefront as the work progresses beyond local color into a realm that is universal and unabashedly American. Woven throughout the collection is the grounding presence of a young man searching for a place (and a voice) in a world that is set against him