Category: Humor Publisher: Mill City Press
ISBN-10: 1934937487
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 158
Copyright: January 1, 2009
ISBN-13: 9781934937488
Lesbian couple leaves DC area for log cabin in heart of Appalachia, tripping over local language, customs, foods and religion as they try to learn the ways of mountain folk, Wickedly funny look at how city dwellers fare when relocating to a rural environment.
Real Country: From the Fast Track to Appalachia is a humorous memoir of Leslie and Hope's first 18 months in the heart of southern Appalachia. The two northern born and bred middle-aged women thought they were prepared for the mountain culture but find it is not as easy to acclimate as they'd thought.
Part One of Real Country describes Leslie and Hope's growing disenchantment with urban life and the progression of incidents that set them on the road to Appalachia. Part Two includes 50 letters recounting their adventures and misadventures as they tried to learn the ways of the mountain people.
Readers will be lifted over the hurdles of communication, rural customs, politics, religion and food, to name a few issues the women faced. One reader described Real Country as "...a hilarious expose of how ignorant we urban dwellers are when we head for green acres." Another said, "Brunetsky's Real Country manages to strike a balance that also reveals her warm admiration and respect for her new Appalachian mountain neighbors."
Excerpt
“We’ve already discovered one local delicacy that we can live without. It took us awhile to figure out what that elongated thing was on Hope’s plate the other day. From its shape, it could have been many things, none of which we wanted any part of, but Hope bravely tried it and pronounced it a deep fried pickle. If you grew up as we did on kosher deli pickles, we can’t recommend it. There are just some things that in the name of decency shouldn’t be done to pickles.”
“We learned about a new sport this week. It’s called turkey bowling. They use a ten-twelve pound frozen turkey instead of a bowling ball. You wrap the bird in duct tape, taking care to maintain its original shape. You can either hold it by the skinny end if your hand is big enough, or just lay the flat part on your hand, and sort of slide it through the air toward the pins. You get three chances and they add up the points, one for each pin you get down. If you’re really good at flipping the bird, so to speak, you can get as much as thirty points. The winners get their picture in the paper.” P. 87 second and third paragraphs
“For a few minutes, I thought I’d been dreaming...and had never really left New Jersey. When I read the headline in the Mountain Times, ‘Big Brawl Coming,’ and they described a scene of people stamping their feet and clapping while watching fistfights, it sounded just like my old Newark high school at lunchtime. However, when I read on, it turns out this was a spectacle they actually expected people to buy tickets to observe. According to the organizer’s promotion, ‘If you’re man enough and have the guts, you’re invited to enter and win the prize money, title, handsome trophy and bragging rights.’ In my high school we just fought to earn the right to keep our lunch money and our lives, and go to school another day. We didn’t get trophies or prize money.”
A naïve councilman and a down-on-her-luck single mom try to save their county’s last stand of forest from greedy developers and a dysfunctional government.
