“Strange as this weather has been” by Ann Pancake

Editorial Reviews from Amazon.com

From Publishers Weekly
A hard-living Appalachian family weathers a contemporary coal boom in the debut from West Virginia native Pancake. Soon after their first meeting in the 1980s, college freshman Lace See and 15-year-old local boy James Makepeace Turrell (Jimmy Make) conceive their first child. Nearly 20 years later, Lace is uneasily settled as a mother to Jimmy’s four children as a flurry of strip mining and clear cutting make the mountains she has known since childhood unrecognizable. One summer right after a strip-mining induced flood, things come to a head. Lace’s environmental activism ramps up; daughter Bant, working at a local motel, discovers her allegiance to the mountains and her sexuality; each of Lace and Jimmy’s three sons (Corey, Jimmy and Dane) is touched in turn by the collapsing economy and environment. Lush descriptions of the landscape are matched with a hurtling stream-of-consciousness narration to great effect: one doubts neither the characters’ voices nor their places in a very complex poverty. (Oct.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* With her beloved West Virginia hollows and valleys under constant onslaught by a savage coal-mining industry whose raping of the land threatens her home with devastating floods, Lace Ricker finds herself battling callous forces both without and within her own family. As thunderous blasts weaken their home’s foundation and poisoned wastewater infiltrates their well, Lace and her daughter, Bant, secretly become more determined to find a way to stop the mines, while Lace’s husband pragmatically refuses to fight the union bosses, and her sons tentatively, then calamitously, accept the challenges and adventure of life lived in the shadow of imminent danger. By tracing the devastating impact of coal mining through the eyes of Lace and her four children, Pancake’s powerful debut novel evinces a poetic pathos and authentic respect for the land and the people who love it. To comprehend the egregious and tragic environmental damage mountaintop-removal coal mining has wrought on the once pristine vistas of Appalachia, one should read any one of many excellent exposés. To understand the human toll such destruction exacts, one must turn to fiction, for novels such as Pancake’s reflect deeper, timeless truths. Haggas, Carol

Product Description
Set in present day West Virginia, Ann Pancake’s debut novel, Strange As This Weather Has Been, tells the story of a coal mining family—a couple and their four children—living through the latest mining boom and dealing with the mountaintop removal and strip mining that is ruining what is left of their mountain life. As the mine turns the mountains to slag and wastewater, workers struggle with layoffs and children find adventure in the blasted moonscape craters.

Strange As This Weather Has Been follows several members of the family, with a particular focus on fifteen-year-old Bant and her mother, Lace. Working at a “scab” motel, Bant becomes involved with a young miner while her mother contemplates joining the fight against the mining companies. As domestic conflicts escalate at home, the children are pushed more and more outside among junk from the floods and felled trees in the hollows—the only nature they have ever known. But Bant has other memories and is as curious and strong-willed as her mother, and ultimately comes to discover the very real threat of destruction that looms as much in the landscape as it does at home.

My Review
This is Ann Pancake’s debut novel. She’s a Professor of English. She has won numerous awards. This particular book takes place in her home state, West Virginia. She describes the difficulties of raising a family in Appalachia where mountain top removal sites are destroying their precious land and their lives. She weaves a tale about a family’s struggles living in one of these towns as well as raising awareness levels about what mountain-top removal is really doing to the families that live in these towns. She picks a typical West Virginia Appalachian family and tells their story. This is a book I normally wouldn’t read. It was nominated for a book club I’m in. It’s an easy read and it does evoke sympathy and a desire for activism for the people of these West Virginian towns. I wasn’t too happy with the ending, but I don’t want to give it away. I couldn’t really identify with any of the characters. Obviously. hehe. But I think it was a story that needed to be told and an issue that should be a national concern, possibly a global one. I think Pancake wrote a lovely debut novel about her hometown state. It’s a very easy read and you can finish it in a day. Only 360 pages. I am critical of the parents in the story. I didn’t think they were the best of parents, but I couldn’t blame them because they were poor and were doing the best they could. If you’re interested in learning about the tragedies of mountain top removal sites for coal mining or how the lives of the people who live in that area are affected, then I highly recommend this book. I give this book 2 out of 5 stars just because I didn’t like the ending and the parents frustrated me. *Grin*

Tags: Ann Pancake, book review, books, coal mining, Mountaintop removal, Strange as this weather has been, West Virginia