Furrow and Slice

by Richard Snodgrass

Beyond the valley's hills that define the mill town of Furnass is another world. A world of rolling hills and fields of wheat and oats and corn. A world of isolated farmhouses keeping company only with their barns and outbuildings. A world of open vistas and skies that go for miles even on a gray day. A world where the land if left untended goes quickly back to forest where the wild things are. At times the life of the farmlands intersects with the life of the town-at the supermarkets and superstores in the shopping malls, at the shops and restaurants and dealerships along the streets of Furnass. But soon enough the people of the farmlands return home to where they're known and understood. Proud of who they are, and who they are not.
FURROW AND SLICE is a book of short short stories and attending photographs-some of the stories standing their own, others as chapters in larger works-portraying the people in the farmlands of upper Appalachia. In tracing the seasons of growth and decay, planting and harvesting, reaping and sowing, as found on the farms of Southwestern Pennsylvania, FURROW AND SLICE portrays the spirit of an indelible people and their way of life, and helps flesh out the fictional world of the Books of Furnass

374 pages, Hardcover

Published August 2, 2021

About the author

Richard Snodgrass is the critically acclaimed author of the “Books of Furnass” Series, an eleven-volume set of novels that explores the hopes, disappointments, relationships, and betrayals that make up life in a fictional Western Pennsylvania mill town and its surrounding farmlands from the time of the French and Indian War to modern day. The eleventh book in the series, Torn, will be released on September 17, 2025.

Snodgrass is also the author of There’s Something in the Back Yard, published in 1989 by Viking, and praised by Jack Stephens of the Washington Post Book World who wrote, “Observe this mysterious book and be changed.” Other works by Snodgrass include: An Uncommon Field: The Flight 93 Temporary Memorial, published in September of 2011 by Carnegie Mellon University Press, and Kitchen Things: An Album of Vintage Utensils and Farm Kitchen Recipes, published in 2013 by Skyhorse and named one of the year’s “best books to get you thinking about food” by the Associated Press.

Snodgrass’s short stories and essays have appeared in the New England Review/Bread Loaf Quarterly, South Dakota Review, California Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is also a master photographer who has been artist-in-residence at LightWorks (University of Syracuse) and at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Richard Snodgrass lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife Marty and two indomitable female tuxedo cats, raised from feral kittens, named Frankie and Becca.

Reviews

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best fiction has the ring of truth. The first half of Furrow and Slice is composed of one-page interlocked stories accompanied by unpeopled, unsentimental photographs depicting farm life. The second half is more of a novella, telling of a family representative of the harshness and beauty of life on a farm. Several photographs display the same appeal as that of the paintings of Andrew Wyeth, but this is the more rugged western part of the state of Pennsylvania, so they do not possess the shabby chic quality of the famous artist. The stories are stark, real, and haunting.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Snodgrass’s usual subject matter is industrial life in his fictional town of Furnass, but here he turns his attention, equally successfully, to rural life in southwestern Pennsylvania and gives the reader a vivid and authentic portrait of farmers and their way of life, which has changed little over the centuries. Not the romanticised portrait of country bliss, but the hard, bleak, often dreary life in isolated farmhouses, of independent farmers and their hard-scrabble existence, on land they love but which is frequently unforgiving and demanding. The book comprises a series of linked short stories or vignettes, some just a couple of pages, all accompanied by evocative black and white photographs. Snodgrass has the remarkable ability to conjure a whole world in just a few lines, and his people come alive as fully-rounded characters. Not a word is wasted in this wonderfully insightful depiction of farming families.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of art photos and flash stories achieves a collage narrative. The monochromatic images -- a fenceline, a kitchen sink, a disembodied pig snout, a shovel among ears of corn, a cow, more cows, and so on -- do not speak precisely to their accompanying flash story. Rather, they complement the stories that themselves are textual snapshots. Taken together, the photographic and written components create a layered, almost documentary, accounting of life in Furnass, a fictional mill town in Southwestern Pennsylvania. I saw shades in *Furrow and Slice* of Sherwood Anderson's *Winesburg, Ohio,* a book I re-read frequently. For readers who enjoy gritty, slice-of-life narratives; flash fiction; black & white photography; and the lyrical story they together weave, I recommend a peek at this book.

[Thanks to Calling Crow Press and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my opinion.]

[Bonnye Reed]

Netgalley App
pub date August 2, 2021
Received July 31, 2021
Calling Crow Press

[Candy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

While the short-short stories and the photography deserve 4 stars, this needs to come with a warning:

It is as bleak and dreary as you can get.

The setting is somewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania, with rolling hills and farm fields of wheat, oats and corn. This book provides a glimpse inside isolated farmhouses, and explores the daily interaction between family, friends and neighbors of this farming community. Life is tough here, and challenges abound. These aren’t stories about the trend of the wealthy leaving Wall Street and enjoying life in the country. These characters are often restless in their lives amid the absence of opportunity to effect change.

The stories are short, some only a few paragraphs, and the book is divided into two sections. The first section is entirely short-short stories, and the second section is a novella. Each new story is introduced by a black & white photo which doesn’t necessarily correspond to the story. However, as the author intends for the photos to represent the measure of hope in the characters’ lives, the photos are purposely not glittering with color.

The issues touched upon include work, romance, yearning, hope, sadness, coping, endurance and escaping. These themes are illustrated by stories with the following heavy subject matter:

Forbidden, and sometimes consummated, temptations and love.
Isolation, both physical and emotional.
Rape and its aftermath.
Domestic abuse.
Abandonment.
Inequality in class and wealth.
Indifference and apathy.

The book deals with these subjects just as it does the photos, starkly and matter of factly.

https://candysplanet.wordpress.com/

[Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this literary fiction book it was so well wrote. Each short story provoked emotions within me. The photographs at the start of each story or chapter was spectacular a masterpiece in itself and so well fitting. All the photos where in black and white they were so beautiful, so simple, powerful enough to add to the emotions and tensions of the book. Bringing that extra dimension to the book. The stories are all based on farm lands around Pennsylvania. Some stories were very short, there were fantastic but I wanted more to these stories they were so beautiful and heartwarming I felt a little cheated that they had ended so soon. I especially loved the story about the two Mary Elizabeth's. One had to be Mary Beth so you could tell them apart. This story was pure genius. The emotions and passion in this tale made me want to read more.
I throughly enjoyed reading these short stories I found myself wishing I was there living in these wonderful described places of rural life. It really paints the wonderful lives of these extremely hardworking people. The issues in everyday farming lives and the joys and sorrows of living within the beauty of nature.
I would love to read each of these stories as full length novels as I adored the authors writing style, creativity and emotions he creates.
Thanks to the author and publishers for producing this superb collection of short stories. I will be looking out for more to read by this author.
Dear author please write these short stories into full novels. Pretty pleaseeeee

[Larry Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book. It's a juxtaposition of black and white photos, mostly taken in rural, southwestern Pennsylvania and stories. The stories sometimes appear to have something to do with the photos, but it's not always obvious that they do. The stories are essentially pictures in words of a moment in a person's life.

The first part of the book contains forty very short stories, most just a few paragraphs. A few are in multiple parts, the longest, I believe having nine parts.

The second part of the book is essentially a novellette, The Hill Wife. Each short chapter is preceded by a photo. It tells about an old farmer and his spouse, Maddie. Their son, William, a real estate magnate in Pittsburgh, comes home. William has heard that his mother is likely to be institutionalized, and he comes home to prevent his father's doing so. When he sees his mother, he realizes how far into dementia she has gone and then tries to insist on taking charge of the institutionalization.

William's father, Noah, and he have rarely seen eye to eye on things. Basically, we go back and forth between the one and the other with their reminiscences of their lives together. A few chapters contain rather muddled musings from Maddie. Over the course of things we get a rather nice portrait of complicated family dynamics.

I loved the little stories, the longer story, and all the photos. This book will be a treasure to revisit from time to time.

#FurrowAndSlice
#GoodReads

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A portrait of life in rural southwestern Pennsylvania told through short stories, a novella, and photographs. As a resident of the region, I live a stone’s throw away from Washington County, where the fictional town of Furnass lies and the real town of Hickory, where many of the photographs accompanying the stories were taken. I can attest to the realistic portrayal of a people who recognize that their way of life is changing but are either lacking the opportunities or the will to change their circumstances. These stories are an accurate depiction of rural life in the region below Pittsburgh, as well as the attitudes and demeanors of many who dwell in it. These stories are all somewhat dreary and do not paint the rosy picture of farm life that is so often shown in the media. Life for family farmers is hard!

I enjoyed many of the stories and hope the author expands some into full length novels. I would like to know more about the lives of these characters, of which readers are only given a small glimpse.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read this book that hits so very close to home.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black and white images alternate with fictional text in this book about rural Western Pennsylvania. The narrative is a mix of extremely short stories (one page each) or related chapters, with each chapter still only one page. Author Richard Snodgrass does an excellent job of portraying a small-town in Western Pennsylvania, with nearby Pittsburgh the "big" city. However, he is not a native of Western Pennsylvania, as his attempts to use the vernacular reveal (you don't "redd" a table or a room, you "redd up."). Such nuances are not as apparent to non-natives, but as a 30-year resident, I caught it.

The themes are familiar to anyone who has considered or mourned the death of small towns--younger people move away in search of better opportunities, leaving their parents to age. The evocative images show landscapes, farming equipment, barns, etc. I am a Pittsburgh native and this book resonated with me in many ways, but you don't have to be a Pennsylvanian to enjoy it. #FurrowandSlice #NetGalley

[Charla Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book for anyone dreaming of a simple life. Yes, it’s a lot of hard work but it’s also very rewarding. In this lovely book, through the stories and photographs you get a real sense of living the farm life. You also get to know the wonderful people that chose this way of life. The stories paint a clear picture of what farm life was like in a slower paced world much different from our fast paced lives today.