Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place - (Two Dollar Radio New Classics) by Scott McClanahan (Paperback)

About the Book

"Crapalachia 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 quirky stories, Crapalachia 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 memories. Even more, there is a grasp to bridge the disconnect between reader and writer, for McClanahan's stories to bind us closer to one another."--

Book Synopsis

"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 memories. Even more, there is a grasp to bridge the disconnect between reader and writer, for McClanahan's stories to bind us closer to one another.

The New Classics series aims to celebrate the enduring cultural impact that publications have made by refreshing these evergreen titles with cover designs and new introductions by acclaimed writers and artists that speak to the resonance and relevance of these works.

Review Quotes

"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 moon... He is not a writer of half-measures. The man has purpose. This is his symphony, every note designed to resonate, to linger."
--Allison Glock, New York Times Book Review

"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

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

"Scott McClanahan might be today's best-known indie press writer... [his books] function as pseudo-memoirs with a crackling electricity rarely found in literary fiction."
--Phil McCausland, The A.V. Club

"McClanahan's deep loyalty to his place and his people gives his story wings: 'So now I put the dirt from my home in my pockets and I travel. I am making the world my mountain.' And so he is."
--Gina Webb, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"[Crapalachia is] a wild and inventive book, unquestionably fresh of spirit, and totally unafraid to break formalisms to tell it like it was."
--Blake Butler, Vice

"Epic. McClanahan's prose is straightforward, casual, and enjoyable to read, reminiscent at times of Kurt Vonnegut. Crapalachia is one of the rare books that, after you reach the end, you don't get up to check your e-mail or Facebook or watch TV."
--Alex Miller, Rain Taxi Review of Books

"Part memoir, part hillbilly history, part dream, McClanahan embraces humanity with all its grit, writing tenderly of criminals and outcasts, family and the blood ties that bind us."
--Royal Young, Interview Magazine

"It is the defiance in the writing that is breathtaking, the very aliveness of this voice in the face of all those dead: the thousands and thousands of dead miners, the dead of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel, the dead of the Sago Mine Disaster, the dead of the Buffalo Creek Flood, the dead of hunger, the dead of a death by their own hands."
--Mesha Maren, HTML Giant

"McClanahan's frenetic account of life growing up in rural West Virginia practically seethes with place, with empathy, with humor and violence and the boringness/incredibleness of being young."
--Emily Temple, Flavorwire

"In this innovative 'biography, ' McClanahan... chronicles the peculiarities of Appalachian life--punctuated by mine collapses, quotidian tragedies, and recipes for chicken and gravy--and is infused with both boundless love and the ever-present specter of death... His singular mission is to create a lasting testament to the people he has loved and he succeeds: [Crapalachia] leaves an enduring impression."
--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"[McClanahan's] voice is wholly unaffected, and his account manages to be both comic and unpretentiously sentimental."
--Nicole Rudick, The Paris Review 'Daily'

"McClanahan through words attempts to transform memory into a record of family and friends, to somehow make them permanently a part of his life--and all our lives... stark, beautiful writing."
--Natalie Sypolt, Paste Magazine