Roxana

by Forester Hogg

It’s the late 1940s in Letcher County, Kentucky, and in the raucous mountain hamlet of Roxana, young Forester Hogg and his brother Jim court death daily as they try earnestly to emulate adult behaviors that would chill a mother’s heart to learn of them. Dire family circumstances cause the boys to be placed with elderly foster parents, Bill and Mary, at the head Paces’s Branch. They live off the land and supplement their old-age pension with a secret moonshine still. And the boys adjust to a lifestyle that remains a century behind the times. It’s a coming of age story that asks the question: why can’t all life lessons just be funny, instead of painful, or embarrassing, or, as is usual with these two brothers, all three at the same time?

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 4, 2013

About the author

Forester Hogg was born on Kings Creek, in Letcher County, Kentucky, and moved soon after to the nearby village of Roxana. It was here, and in places close by, that he lived for his first ten years. He graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BA in Sociology. After completing a career-long detour through the field of computer software development, he has turned his attention back to what originally lay behind his interest in Sociology—the culture of his Appalachian birthplace. In his lifetime he has seen rural Appalachia lose much of its centuries-old identity under the culture-leveling influence of increased educational opportunity, popular media, access to the Internet, and easy travel. His purpose in writing Roxana has been to depart from the aims of scholars and TV documentaries and tell a personal story of the richly-textured life he experienced in the hills of eastern Kentucky.

Reviews

[Christi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kick the can

I'm torn about only giving this three stars. I could feel and understand that the author wrote from his heart about the childhood that shaped the man he became. However, I really had to push myself to finish this book. It just never took hold for me and made me WANT to know what happened next. I can understand the appeal of this story to either family or people who know the areas described in the book, but for someone who fits neither of those descriptions, it was just rather dull.