West Virginia

by Joe Halstead

West Virginia is a moody wild ride of a novel. Dark, momentous, soulful, deeply human – the book turns the mind inside out, questioning the places we live and the reasons why we both leave them and come back. —Vol.1 Brooklyn

Jamie Paddock spent his youth trying to escape West Virginia. Persistent determination and the sacrifice of all emotional attachment led him to New York City. There, his need to become what the city demands of him, along with the strong gravitational pull of his new obsession, Sara, fuel a growing anxiety that his home, and his old way of life, are disappearing forever. But Jamie revisits the seamy underside of Appalachia when he returns to his holler to investigate what led his father to suicide, finding parochial prejudices, strange sexual tensions, and family skeletons. Will Jamie learn what really happened to his father and heal his old wounds? Can he escape West Virginia a second time, or will he succumb to its ominous control?

Genres: Fiction

186 pages, Paperback

Published January 10, 2017

About the author

Joe Halstead is a writer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He currently serves as a writer at Marvel Games. He is the author of two novels. His work can also be found in Literary Hub, Paper Darts, [PANK], Word Riot, Sundog Lit, Five Quarterly, The Saint Ann's Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Slice Literary Magazine, Bird's Thumb, and others.

Reviews

[Ace Boggess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this novel is like taking a punch in the gut from a close friend. It hurts and stuns and surprises, but you forgive him because he's your buddy and, well, you know you probably deserved it. Halstead writes of a young writer living in NYC who returns to West Virginia, where he grew up, after the apparent suicide of his father. In doing so, he sees the people and places with fresh eyes, at once both part of and not part of his former home. The author beautifully conveys the strangeness of culture shock that comes from rediscovering one's own culture. The people he describes are vivid and real--you feel like you know them, and you probably do--in their simplicity and also their ugliness at times. Even his meditations on things as banal as the local Applebee's are sharp-witted and inspired. I thoroughly loved this book from beginning to end (which unfortunately arrives much too soon).

[Janeen Swart · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst book I have listened to lately. It didn't seem like there was any point to it. The main character was either drunk or on drugs most of the time. Don't waste your time.

[Acacia Ives · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to author Joe Halstead for this ARC. The publication date is January 10, s0 I'll start reading right away. Looking forward to reading this book by a West Virginia author.

I took a Goodreads break for awhile so I've waited way too long between finishing this book and writing this review to do it justice, but I'll try. Jaime Paddock is a native West Virginian, and returns home from New York City following the death of his father...death by suicide we assume, since his father's car was found near a bridge, but no body has been recovered. Now Jaime is back in the morass of his West Virginia upbringing - I live in West Virginia and it seems like Jaime is from one of the worst parts of it....the stereotypical parts that you often hear and read about where people are making party punch from cough medicine and taking questionable liberties with their relatives. I don't really know that West Virginia, though some parts of Halstead's book rang true (eating at a chain restaurant is considered "fancy" to some, and a number of people have never been out of the state....or if they have it was a short jaunt to Myrtle Beach during miners' vacation with the rest of the state). Jaime is a confused young man trying to determine where he belongs....without realizing that you don't necessarily have to choose one or the other, and that sometimes different parts of your life choose you.

Halstead is a talented writer and I'm anxious to see what he does next.

[Joy Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is hard for me to review. I finished it last night and I still can't figure what it was supposed to mean.Did it have a deep meaning that that I am missing ? It was a short book,easily could finish in one sitting.There was no story or plot ,just a two day trip a guy goes back home to west Virginia and can't wait to get back to NYC.But he does't like New York either. The only reason I finished it was because it was so short and didn't take too long to read.

[Kimmylongtime · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a DNF for me .I found myself confused I only read the first 6 chapters.Between all the drugs he was using and his flashbacks. I wasn’t sure what was going on. Ugh 😩 I wanted to like this one but no time is being wasted this year on books I don’t love.


Please forgive me 🥰😩

" Happy reading everyone "

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Any time that I read a book set in West Virginia I hope that the author will treat the state with honesty and understanding. It is a place that is complicated and full of contradictions, with more beauty than ugliness, both in it's environment and it's people. Unfortunately this book makes no effort to capture that. Instead, this novel is a venomous ode to the author's cultural cringe at having been born in a god-awful place like West Virginia. The state is another character in the novel... a one note cartoon villain with no subtlety or complexity. The people who live there are the worst stereotypes of mountain people. Every character is some combination of lazy, pathetically helpless, stupid and sly in varying degrees, because that is just how things are in West Virginia. Every evil that happens in this book is explained by saying that is just how things are in West Virginia. If you want to write a story about escaping poverty and how it looks when you come back to see it through a stranger's eyes, fair enough. Write about your home town or your family without condemning an entire state while you do it.

Aside from the demonizing of an entire state, the book had good moments and bad moments. A lot of what was included didn't seem to add anything to the overall story, and things that could have been more interesting (like the visit to the grandmother) didn't feel that they had been fully explored. I liked the contrast between his old life and his new one, and the idea that his father was more of a mystery than he expected. I think that the author shows some promise and would give his next novel a try. I just hope it isn't set in West Virginia.

[Keegan Lester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you know that's Joe's real hair? Cause it is. damnnnn.

Joe, a thousand other boys could never reach you, how could I have been the one? I saw the world spin beneath you & scatter like ice from the spoon
That was your womb,comin' down. The world turned over. & angels fall without you there. & I go on as you get colder

You know the lies that they always told you & the love you never knew?
What's the things they never showed you, that swallowed the light from the sun?

[Amy Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave it 5 stars because I have driven the back roads of West Virginia and seen the abject poverty there and this made it more meaningful to me.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel of finding, losing, and defining "home".

Review to come

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, it's a writer-searching-for-self-while-coming-to-grips-with-the-past kind of tale, but the thing that stands out is how raggedly Halstead writes -- about both NYC and West Virginia. For the most part, the roughness doesn't seem too forced, skillfully breaking at points to yield something human in the impoverished, backwoods origins that the main character (and presumably the author) all but suppresses.

[James Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being from West Virginia, I am glad to say the author explores Appalachia with more empathy and nuance than a book like Hillbilly Elegy. I was moved by the narrator’s search for self in the place he left behind, and the depth of the occasionally melancholy narration is often tempered by humor and a light touch with dialogue and descriptions. If the late great Breece Pancake had written a novel set in this decade, it might resemble Joe Halstead’s West Virginia.

[Alis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book. I like Joe Halstead's style. Although this book is a debut, but there are feelings of maturity of the author as a writer. West Virginia is a difficult novel, but this is its charm for me. I like books that make me think about after reading and I remember plot for a long time. I'm looking forward to the new book The Chalice by Joe Halstead.

[Al Kratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. He’s a good writer and these characters were compelling and I wanted to stay with them. You can tell he worked his ass off on this book and I’d give him a big high five if I came across him in a bar. I loved the commenter in here that said he thought this was a travel book.

The choice of 3rd person close, (I think that’s what this is as it no doubt is following Jamie) , creates something for me that seems common: a distance from the character but a narrator that still tries to hide too (there are 2 instances in one chapter of first person I we don’t know “who” the “I” is) so is the author trying to hide the writerly voice? Is this over allegiance to show don’t tell? Does this in the end strip us from some emotional depth of the MC. I certainly felt it did in the first 2/3 but then came in closer for the final conflict / resolution but still far from Jamie’s voice... I don’t know... I think it could have been even more West Virginia by letting it rip and not creating a wall between reader, writer, and Jamie? I like the way Ottessa Moshfegh does this with first person.


I am interested in the idea that you have to be from West Virginia to really know. I’m from Iowa. I still live somewhat near where I grew up. I don’t know. Maybe it’s my privilege or my lack of wanderlust. I just think the idea of being stuck somewhere or defined by the place you came from is bs even if you never leave. I think it’s like New Year’s Day. An over indulged construct that is totally true for some people but once you decide it’s not for you, you can never see it the same way. This is just my two cents. As far as the work goes, the concept made perfect sense. I just think you could even replace almost any place with West Virginia vs. NYC for a man pulled between getting away and staying home.

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

To say it took me six weeks to read this novel says much to me. It’s fiction and not too lengthy, so I should have finished it earlier. But I couldn’t stomach it except in small doses. Some would say it’s gritty, a shocker. Some would say it’s a look at a dysfunctional way of life. But I didn’t like it. The characters were dysfunctional, from the main character who’s trying to escape from his childhood and life in WV, to his delayed trip home for his father’s death, to his reconnection to family and friends, and even his NYC coworkers, friends, and pick-up girlfriend. (I guess she was a girlfriend but seemed to be a stranger he slept with.). As the MC tries to make sense of everything, it becomes more convoluted.

I am a West Virginian and grew up near this locale. The places are real, and some generalizations were made. But not one character, attitude, and mores of the region were more than the depraved Appalachian hillbilly stereotypes from days past.

Would I recommend this novel for those interested in Appalachian literature? No. Would I rate it with similar books about Appalachia? Maybe on the level of Crappalachia or Hillbilly Elegy, which I didn’t appreciate either.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent first novel from an unlikely author- someone willing to admit his meager beginnings and demonstrate that “small town boy makes good” is still a relevant passage in these United States of America- even when the small town boy is from the hills of West Virginia coal country.

Jamie Paddock, like the writer who dreamed him up, is a West Virginia boy with dreams of getting out, and the uncommon parental support to achieve them. When his father unexpectedly died, Jamie leaves New York City and spends a week getting to know the man he’d never really known outside his role as dad. Upon following up on the things that made his father tick, Jamie learns what it takes to survive and thrive in poverty stricken circumstances and what that means to the legacies of the struggle.

Rough languaged and often crassly narrated, this work embraces the idea that a human can have his feet in more than one place at a time. Well written, this work invites the reader to experience the gritty truths of what it means to be a second class citizen in one of the poorest regions of the country. Highly recommend.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I’d try this book out because it sounded interesting. Well it was certainly interesting. I never laid it down until I had to but then rushed right back to finish it.

Jaimie heads home to West Virginia when he gets word his dad has died by suicide. His sister has never left home and lives with his mom who has MS. This book covers a short period of time while he tries to figure out why his dad died. His mom and sister are memorable characters. His sister sells meat to her neighbors. She calls it venison but Jamie discovers it is actually road kill His mom seems like a good person but is terribly weak and quite ill. He spends some time with relatives who are all a bit off. In the end he goes home to NYC with no resolution. We readers got to enjoy the bit of time with him so overall I was pretty glad I read this.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm confused. It is difficult to find the right words to describe this book, it is even more difficult to find the right words for the feelings that it causes. This is quite a brutal novel about not the best aspects of life. But the main character - Jamie Paddock is a good guy with a difficult fate. I empathized with him all the time. Jamie is constantly looking for his place in the world, it's hard for him, his life is full of dramas and complexities, but he struggles with difficulties and with himself as he can. Probably, I still do not fully understand what this book is about, what the author wanted to say ... And you know, this is the main value of West Virginia for me.

[julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

oof. a guy (a Male Writer) has moved to NYC from where he grew up in West Virginia, then returns to his childhood home when his father dies. i was interested in the story because it dealt with being from somewhere and being shaped by that place, rejecting that and going away, but it still continues to stay a part of your identity - and upon returning to your old home, you are perceived differently than before you went away. some parts of the story though felt very "oh, i'm a Male Artist, i Suffer, i do drugs, all the women want me" to me...i guess overall i feel quite lukewarm about this book.

cw for a scene in which a dog is very brutally tortured & killed, sexual abuse and suicide

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Halstead is undoubtedly a talented and promising writer. I learned about 'West Virginia' thanks to recommendation. To put it bluntly, I did not expect much from a young writer I did not know. But, it happened otherwise - this book is a search symbol, an eternal search of a person. It seems that it is worth changing the place, city, country and everything will change, but no. It's not that you live in Virginia or New York, it's just who you are and how honest you are with yourself. The book made a very strong impression on me. Great work!

[Lorri Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Growing up in the Appalachian mountains, I know about the ugliness, the drugs, and poverty.

But I wished the author would have to at least attempted to show the beauty. But to be honest he didn't that for NYC either. Jamie had so much going on it kind of weakened his character to me. Never really felt clued into him.

The grotesque language in some scenes was just a bit more than I liked. And I can also assure you that Appalachians would know the difference between dog meat and venison. Also how do you miss a target but then hit a deer. Ehhh I don't know lots of mixed feelings

[Matt Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this book starts as a jumble of borderline vulgar scenes, the main character solidifies into a relatable wanderer who has ambivalent feelings about his roots in West Virginia. Having driven to Western Maryland many times, I enjoyed seeing the Tamarack appear in this book, as well as the New River Gorge. Jamie, the narrator, seeks meaning while stuck in the solipsism of the 20-something mindset. The book certainly grew on me as it delved into reckoning with a hometown after having left it, and it has some payoff despite a rudderless beginning.

[lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. It was a quick read with enough in it to keep me reading, but I quickly tired of the inconsistencies in the story and the major leaps in relationships and feelings without any resolution happening to get anyone there. I feel like maybe I could like Halsteads subsequent books now that he got this first choppy presumably semi-autobiographical novel out of the way.

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it in one sitting. To be honest, I like multi-volume and series. I rarely read short books. But "West Virginia" is like a great short film, if you understand what I mean. This book is a concentrate of emotion, thoughts, an excellent storyline, constant tension. Very cool. I want more books of Joe Halstead!

[Moushmi Radhanpara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jamie Paddock has always wanted to leave West Virginia, but when he finally moves to New York, he needs to adjust himself into the city life. Hoewever, it is not at all easy. Later on, he needs to find the reason for his father's suicide and decide if he can or will escape West Virginia a second time.

A dark and partly thriller, the novel is written very well with equal thrill and suspense. However, I kept losing the story in parts making it less emotional.

[Laur · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I hate marking a book as DNF but this one felt extremely self-congratulatory. Like "oh look at me, everyone in my family is so racist and I'm the only one not dropping the n-slur every other conversation". the main character is obviously not the ally they think they are, and I couldn't get through more than 36% of the book.

[Nailah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usually when authors write about their home towns it’s a love letter to where they are from, but this one is just not that. These characters are so stereotypical that it makes it very difficult to relate to the story. It was hard to get through and by the end, I still didn’t really get what it was supposed to teach us. Obviously this one wasn’t for me.

[Danyel VanReenen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt more like a memoir than a novel. It was also the ugliest possible reflection of West Virginia (my home state)

And it really bothered me more than it should have that he kept going deer hunting with a .22
I don't know a single self respecting redneck who would go hunting with such a weak rifle lol

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! I read it in one evening. Emotionally heavy and keeps in suspense until the last stanitsa. I love books that have their own character. The author has a great future in literature. 5 stars!

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some beautiful moments--particularly in the brutal depictions of life in rural West Virginia. But the arc of the story lost me at some point--the side drama with Sara only further distracting from the main thrust of the story--and I felt like the book fell short of making the statement the author set out to make. Rounding up to 3 from 2.5.