Pine Gap

by Brooks Rexroat

In the southeastern Kentucky town of Pine Gap, coal is the economy, faith is the community, and comings and goings are few and far between.

This is home for Jamie Eskill and her family. Her father's life is in the mines, her mother has seldom been more than an hour from town, and her sister has twins that need her constant care.

Jamie may want more from life than Pine Gap can offer, but leaving is complicated. When she gets her ticket out, she's not sure whether to use it--until a disaster changes everything.

346 pages, Paperback

Published March 5, 2019

About the author

Brooks Rexroat is a writer, teacher, and musician. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, he was a 2016-2017 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to the Russian Federation.

He teaches creative and professional writing and Brescia University in Owensboro, Kentucky.

Rexroat holds a bachelor of arts degree in print journalism from Morehead State University (Kentucky) and a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing (prose) from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

His stories and essays have appeared in such publications as Day One, The Prague Revue, The Montreal Review, The Cleveland Review, Weave Magazine,The Literary Bohemian, Midwestern Gothic, Matchbook Literary Magazine and Boston Literary Magazine.

Reviews

[Jc · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the American version of How Green Was My Valley. We are in the Appalachians rather than Wales but it is the same description of the miserable and dangerous life of the coal miners. Here the end is a bit more upbeat with the main character finding an exit. Endearing but slow.