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allegiance
A collection of stories twenty years in the making from celebrated Kentucky author Gurney Norman.
Told in the first person, this autobiographical collection of linked stories follows a young man, Wilgus Collier, through his struggles to understand his working-class Appalachian childhood and, later, to navigate midlife alcoholism and depression. The book’s epilogue features a selection of Norman’s nonfiction essays.
Published by Old Cove Press
Told in the first person, this autobiographical collection of linked stories follows a young man, Wilgus Collier, through his struggles to understand his working-class Appalachian childhood and, later, to navigate midlife alcoholism and depression. The book’s epilogue features a selection of Norman’s nonfiction essays.
Published by Old Cove Press
- GenresFictionShort Stories
216 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
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About the author
Gurney Norman
12 books31 followersGurney Norman was born in Grundy, Virginia in 1937. He grew up in the southern Appalachian Mountains and was raised alternately by his maternal grandparents in Southwest Virginia and his paternal grandparents in East Kentucky in several towns, but primarily in the small community of Allais, near Hazard, in Perry County. He attended Stuart Robinson School in Letcher County, Kentucky, from 1946-1955. Norman attended the University of Kentucky from 1955-1959 graduating with a degree in journalism and English. In 1960, he received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University where he studied with literary critic Malcolm Cowley and the Irish short story writer Frank O'Connor.
After Stanford, Norman spent two years in the U.S. Army. He returned to eastern Kentucky in 1963 to work as a reporter for his hometown newspaper, The Hazard Herald. Leaving newspaper work to concentrate on his fiction writing, Norman took a job with the U.S. Forest Service as a fire lookout in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon in the summers of 1966 and '67. In 1971, his novel Divine Right's Trip was published in The Last Whole Earth Catalog and subsequently by the Dial Press and Bantam Books. Norman was one of the founders of the Briarpatch Network in 1974, with Richard Raymond and Michael Phillips. In 1977, his book of short stories Kinfolks, which received Berea College's Weatherford Award, was published by Gnomon Press.
In 1979, Norman joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky as an Associate Professor of English. He currently serves as Director of the English Department’s Creative Writing Program. In 1996 his work as a fiction writer, filmmaker, and cultural advocate was honored at the Fifteenth Annual Emory and Henry College Literary Festival, which celebrates significant writers in the Appalachian region. In 2002 he was honored by the Eastern Kentucky Leadership Conference for outstanding contribution to the advancement of regional arts and culture. In 2007 the Appalachian Studies Association awarded Norman the Helen M. Lewis Community Service Award, which recognizes exemplary contributions to Appalachia through involvement with and service to its people and communities. He serves as Senior Writer-in-Residence at Hindman Settlement School's annual Appalachian Writers Workshop. Norman was selected to serve as the 2009-2010 Poet Laureate for the state of Kentucky, and was officially installed as Laureate on Friday, April 24, 2009. On May 8, 2011, Norman was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Berea College. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
After Stanford, Norman spent two years in the U.S. Army. He returned to eastern Kentucky in 1963 to work as a reporter for his hometown newspaper, The Hazard Herald. Leaving newspaper work to concentrate on his fiction writing, Norman took a job with the U.S. Forest Service as a fire lookout in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon in the summers of 1966 and '67. In 1971, his novel Divine Right's Trip was published in The Last Whole Earth Catalog and subsequently by the Dial Press and Bantam Books. Norman was one of the founders of the Briarpatch Network in 1974, with Richard Raymond and Michael Phillips. In 1977, his book of short stories Kinfolks, which received Berea College's Weatherford Award, was published by Gnomon Press.
In 1979, Norman joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky as an Associate Professor of English. He currently serves as Director of the English Department’s Creative Writing Program. In 1996 his work as a fiction writer, filmmaker, and cultural advocate was honored at the Fifteenth Annual Emory and Henry College Literary Festival, which celebrates significant writers in the Appalachian region. In 2002 he was honored by the Eastern Kentucky Leadership Conference for outstanding contribution to the advancement of regional arts and culture. In 2007 the Appalachian Studies Association awarded Norman the Helen M. Lewis Community Service Award, which recognizes exemplary contributions to Appalachia through involvement with and service to its people and communities. He serves as Senior Writer-in-Residence at Hindman Settlement School's annual Appalachian Writers Workshop. Norman was selected to serve as the 2009-2010 Poet Laureate for the state of Kentucky, and was officially installed as Laureate on Friday, April 24, 2009. On May 8, 2011, Norman was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Berea College. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 2, 2026
This is one of the most impactful and stunning books I’ve read. I’ve heard Gurney talk about this book as far back as 2000, when he called it “Crazy Quilt.” And I’ve heard him read from it over those years. After reading, I know why Gurney wrote “Look Homeward Angel” on the board in his creative writing class all those years ago. From the unforgettable opening title poem “Allegiance” to the closing consciousness-mirroring “Shattered Jewel,” this is a soulful, visceral and urgent work brimming with clarity, honesty, sadness, humor, and beauty. A staggering achievement. This book should be revered in the same way as James Still’s River of Earth and stories by Chekhov, Breece D’J Pancake, Carver, Cheever, and O’Connor.
To quote Gurney, “Stories are meant to be told and retold, again and again, not just by the original tellers but from others in a family or community who have recognized them as living treasures to be cared for and handed on.”
And “The visits are rituals I conduct for myself by which I revive memories and stories that are precious to me, and through which I remind myself that I am still a feeling creature, capable of love.”
And “I have been trying to get this stuff said for 40 years.”
And “Wilgus dreamed on beneath his stones.”
And “Without speaking we eat the sweet apples, sweet apples even in the wreckage, don’t give up there may be apples there.”
To quote Gurney, “Stories are meant to be told and retold, again and again, not just by the original tellers but from others in a family or community who have recognized them as living treasures to be cared for and handed on.”
And “The visits are rituals I conduct for myself by which I revive memories and stories that are precious to me, and through which I remind myself that I am still a feeling creature, capable of love.”
And “I have been trying to get this stuff said for 40 years.”
And “Wilgus dreamed on beneath his stones.”
And “Without speaking we eat the sweet apples, sweet apples even in the wreckage, don’t give up there may be apples there.”
March 23, 2022
I have seldom found a book that I had hoped for like this. Having read Norman's earlier KINFOLKS: THE WILGUS STORIES (1977) and loved its family of characters, the richness of their voices and landscape, I never thought they would live again, but I hoped. Now 45 years later they arrive and live in his fine prose autobiographic fiction of ALEGIANCE: STORIES. These bright, touching and telling stories are both lyrical and dramatic, his sharpness of style flexible yet centered in this rich Appalachian world. It is my favorite book, so much so that I dread finishing it.
Samples of styles:
"They burned several old mattresses, a couple of stuffed chairs, an old couch and about dozen worn-out tires in this fire, sending a column of black smoke rising above the trees where it billowed into a ball, then spread up and down Trace Fork to hover above us all like a shroud..."
--------
"My Uncle Delmer was living in his trailer at the time, a little one-room camper affair that he kept parked on the creek bank about halfway between Grandma's house and our trash-burning neighbors."
Such fiction grown in rich soil feeds us.
Samples of styles:
"They burned several old mattresses, a couple of stuffed chairs, an old couch and about dozen worn-out tires in this fire, sending a column of black smoke rising above the trees where it billowed into a ball, then spread up and down Trace Fork to hover above us all like a shroud..."
--------
"My Uncle Delmer was living in his trailer at the time, a little one-room camper affair that he kept parked on the creek bank about halfway between Grandma's house and our trash-burning neighbors."
Such fiction grown in rich soil feeds us.
July 27, 2020
While this work is billed as a short story collection, I preferred to think of it as a disjointed scatterplot of a novel. The content ranges all over the place, from half-page childhood recollections to long family histories, from fairy tales to stream of consciousness jumbles, from reflections on tragedies to detoxing in group therapy. It spans the distance between sober and incoherent, somber and delightful, often repeating content from one story to the next. While there is no plotting or consistency of details between recollections, there are large chunks of this set where a string of stories builds steadily, one upon another. Though sometimes we are reading about Wilgus Collier and sometimes Gurney Norman himself, we are given a more full picture of memories that are both personal and generation spanning, of love for both hurting people and a landscape in upheaval , of attempts both to outrun trauma and outlive pain, and of a man who is deeply sensitive, highly intelligent, and eagerly connected to those around him. Even so, this man is closed off, incapable of reconciling the lifetime of pains he rehashes daily. He is unwilling to attempt intimacy any longer, a ghost and a monument to the pains, the land, and the people he carries closest to his heart.
Everything I have ever read of Wilgus (and Divine Right, though he does not show up here) has felt overwhelmingly autobiographical in nature. I can't read about them without assuming their experiences are drawn in nature if not detail from a very colinear reality. This work is raw, sometimes embarrassingly intimate and sometimes scarcely comprehensible. Overall, all the disparate elements paint a truer picture of a man's reality than any straight narrative could provide.
Everything I have ever read of Wilgus (and Divine Right, though he does not show up here) has felt overwhelmingly autobiographical in nature. I can't read about them without assuming their experiences are drawn in nature if not detail from a very colinear reality. This work is raw, sometimes embarrassingly intimate and sometimes scarcely comprehensible. Overall, all the disparate elements paint a truer picture of a man's reality than any straight narrative could provide.
August 5, 2020
Please don't misunderstand me: I am not trying to disparage Gurney's early work. But nothing he's ever written prepared for me for the emotional depth of this collection. So many of these stories turn on a gut punch that left me absolutely breathless, especially The Photograph.
February 11, 2022
The story sometimes flows at a calm and peaceful rate but then will jump into a jumble of mixed memories and halting lines. The stories were originally written across the author’s lifespan. Based on the changes in writing style and rhythm, I don’t believe they were written in the same order we read them in the book and that’s important to remember. The author states this is a fictional autobiography based on his life memories.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews