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The Scapegoat: Establishing a Genre

The Scapegoat: Establishing a Genre MARY LEE SETTLE'S LITERARY LEGACY Thomas E. Douglass The writing of history is of course more complex than figuring out what side you are on and then adjusting things accordingly. For sides have sides to them, obviously made clear in narrative histories and made even more complex in narrative fiction. Mary Lee Settle's 1980 novel The Scapegoat enters the complexity of historical forces, Appalachian culture, and personality. It is no straight road-jack polemic that sets out to right the wrongs of the past, as the temptation may be there to do. The novel is book four of Settle's epic Beulah Quintet and advances the family evolution of people living in the Trans-Allegheny into the 20th century--the Lacey's, the Catlett's, the Neill's, and the McKarkle's-- amid the seminal 1912 Paint Creek-Cabin Creek mine struggle. In part, the novel tells history and chooses rightly a significant moment in West Virginia history and the history of the nation--the coalescence of an inexorably successful labor movement at the precise moment that industrialized America was emerging into a world power. Settle knew she was making the right choice as she told Jennifer Howard in a 1995 interview published in The Southern Quarterly : http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Appalachian Review University of North Carolina Press

The Scapegoat: Establishing a Genre

Appalachian Review , Volume 34 (1) – Jan 8, 2006

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Berea College
ISSN
1940-5081
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

MARY LEE SETTLE'S LITERARY LEGACY Thomas E. Douglass The writing of history is of course more complex than figuring out what side you are on and then adjusting things accordingly. For sides have sides to them, obviously made clear in narrative histories and made even more complex in narrative fiction. Mary Lee Settle's 1980 novel The Scapegoat enters the complexity of historical forces, Appalachian culture, and personality. It is no straight road-jack polemic that sets out to right the wrongs of the past, as the temptation may be there to do. The novel is book four of Settle's epic Beulah Quintet and advances the family evolution of people living in the Trans-Allegheny into the 20th century--the Lacey's, the Catlett's, the Neill's, and the McKarkle's-- amid the seminal 1912 Paint Creek-Cabin Creek mine struggle. In part, the novel tells history and chooses rightly a significant moment in West Virginia history and the history of the nation--the coalescence of an inexorably successful labor movement at the precise moment that industrialized America was emerging into a world power. Settle knew she was making the right choice as she told Jennifer Howard in a 1995 interview published in The Southern Quarterly :

Journal

Appalachian ReviewUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 8, 2006

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